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323224443496Riverdale After Dark: Season 4 Previewhttps://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/12/riverdale-after-dark-season-4-preview/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/12/riverdale-after-dark-season-4-preview/#respondFri, 13 Sep 2019 03:40:35 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13621Riverdale is almost back for Season 4, but we’re here with a preview of the new season right now. Let’s break down the new trailer, info about the first few episodes, and answer a few questions and throw around some theories you sent us on Twitter.

]]>Riverdale is almost back for Season 4, but we’re here with a preview of the new season right now. Let’s break down the new trailer, info about the first few episodes, and answer a few questions and throw around some theories you sent us on Twitter.

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/12/riverdale-after-dark-season-4-preview/feed/013621Watchmen Watch: Issue #2, “Absent Friends”https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/12/watchmen-watch-issue-2-absent-friends/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/12/watchmen-watch-issue-2-absent-friends/#respondThu, 12 Sep 2019 12:00:19 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13578It’s time for Eddie Blake’s funeral, and everyone is having fond memories about the departed Comedian. Just kidding, he was a monster, as we discover through flashbacks and stories. But how much does the extremely non-comedic Comedian represent America? And comic book characters of the time? Find out, as we break down Watchmen #2, “Absent […]

]]>It’s time for Eddie Blake’s funeral, and everyone is having fond memories about the departed Comedian. Just kidding, he was a monster, as we discover through flashbacks and stories. But how much does the extremely non-comedic Comedian represent America? And comic book characters of the time? Find out, as we break down Watchmen #2, “Absent Friends.”

Justin: Our fourth host for this podcast.
He texted me. I accidentally told him we were meeting at a campsite outside of
Stonehenge. We had a mix-up.

Alex: Oh, okay.

Pete: How can you accidentally mix up
this address with that address?

Justin: Just a classic mix-up.

Alex: Auto-text, right?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: I hate that.

Justin: I meant to write the pit loft
where we tape our show. Instead I wrote a campsite just outside of Stonehenge.
So, he’s there. It’s my bad because he was definitely showing up this week, but
I texted him back. He’s totally fine with the mix-up.

Alex: Oh, he’s going to be back next
week?

Justin: He’ll be back next week.

Pete: It kind of works out because the
title of this is Absent Friend, and he’s our absent friend.

Justin: That’s true. He said the same
thing.

Alex: Oh, that’s very true. Absent
Friend, not Almost Friends because me and Alan Moore almost hooked up that one
time.

Justin: That’s true.

Pete: Really? Yeah.

Justin: And he’s not weird about it.
That’s not the real reason he’s not showing up.

Pete: Was that at that San Diego Comic
Con when you were wasted, and you almost hooked up with him?

Justin: Careful. Don’t start-

Alex: I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t want to kiss and tell.

Justin: Don’t start talking about San
Diego Comic Cons and being wasted, Pete.

Pete: Yeah. What?

Justin: You know what you did.

Pete: I was the one who told Jim Lee
he was the king of San Diego.

Justin: No, that’s true. You tried to
smoke a joint with …

Pete: I didn’t try.

Alex: This is very far off field.

Pete: Yeah, I didn’t try nothing.

Alex: Let’s talk about Watchmen, you
guys. So, chapter two of the book, issue number two, Absent Friends. Definitely
going to remember that by the end of the episode. So, to get you guys caught
up, there has been a murder of Eddie Blake. Rorschach is investigating it, and
that’s pretty much kind of where we pick up this issue. But I got to say as
we’re going back through this, I know I said this the last time as well, good
comic.

Pete: Man, great comic.

Alex: This is a good comic.

Justin: Great comic.

Pete: Also, it was nice to see Blue
Man Group put on a suit for the funeral. I thought that was very classy of him.

Alex: That is rude to Doctor
Manhattan. I do want to seriously say, though, I know we mentioned this last
episode. It continues to be surprising to me, and it shouldn’t be, how good
Watchmen is.

Justin: 100% agree. It’s crazy how good
this is, how much Alan Moore is mixing up here. It’s important to remember when
you’re re-reading this or reading it for the first time, this shit had never
been done before. The idea of mixing up a comic this dark where the characters
have sort of nothing going for them or they’re all failing super hard. To see
that and to see all the references to comic book history, topical politics when
he was writing this, and just science, science fiction, everything, world
events. It’s amazing.

Alex: And to give it even more
context, the comic book industry was going through this massive change at this
point when this is being published. Who knows, necessarily, when it was
written, but 1985 you had Crisis of Infinite Earths that condensed the entire
DC Universe, had huge events. Killed off The Flash, killed off Supergirl. So,
those were traumatic in their own ways for superhero fans, and then on the
other side of the fence in Marvel, you had Secret Wars, which is this big
marketing grab that changed characters in a very different way and brought all
of these superheroes together. This always gets lumped in with The Dark Knight.
Was that ’84, I want to say?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Something like that. So, this
was in ’86, so they get lumped together as they’re these other takes while DC
was going darker and darker and Marvel was going light but more complicated in
a very different way.

Justin: Going big, I guess you could say.

Alex: Going big in a very different
way. This was huge. This was promoted very heavily, but this almost eschews
superheroics. That’s one the things I was really struck by with this issues, is
we got the murder mystery thing going on, but whenever there’s a fight, they
cut away from it.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: That’s not the point of what’s
going on. The point is the characters.

Pete: I got a little confused, but
thank you for explaining it when you said shoes superheroics. I didn’t know
what-

Alex: Eschew. Eschew.

Pete: Oh.

Alex: Which is different than his
shoe.

Justin: Yeah.

Pete: I thought you meant it shooes it
like, “Shoo, get away heroics.”

Justin: Oh, I see.

Alex: I’ll tell you what, you should
listen to our spelling podcast, which is very different. We read through-

Pete: You joke about me slurring
words, but …

Justin: E-S-C-H-E-W-S.

Alex: Yes. Eschews.

Justin: Not cashews, which was another
thing he says a lot.

Pete: I’m just saying. Glass house,
motherfucker.

Alex: The interesting thing about
this though is The Comedian eschews shoes and cashews for this issue.

Pete: Wow.

Justin: That’s true. Wow.

Pete: I would also like to point out
not only … We got into this a little bit in talking about the last issue, but
the panels are amazingly put together, but the transitions … Instead of just
showing a flashback, it’s the light off a picture frame that reminds her of flash
photography that brings her this flashback. Just really smart things.

Alex: The structure of this issue, to
get to it a little bit, is Eddie Blake’s funeral. We get to see flashbacks from
everybody, whether they’re there or not, to the past. We find out a lot more
about the event that was hinted at the last issue, which was Eddie Blake’s
assault of, not Laurie Jupiter, Sally Jupiter. The first Silk Spectre. So, we
find out a lot more about that as well as other aspects of all of the
character’s lives and their relationships to Eddie Blake. We find out more
about him as The Comedian. But the interesting thing about this issue, I think
structurally, to your point Justin, the first issue tracks very heavily in very
specific juxtaposition where you get the text and the images are not fighting
against each other, but complement each other in a different way. You get that
here, but it’s much more about the actions where you see Dr. Manhattan at the
funeral, but he’s also potentially in another time at the same time, flashing
back to his relationship with Eddie. It’s much more about a temporal
juxtaposition than a spatial juxtaposition like it is in the first issue.

Justin: The first issue moves so quickly
through a lot of sort of superhero tropes. It just takes them as accepted that
they were a superteam, and the past was a lighter, more fun period just like
the way comic history went. So, the juxtaposition now of actually seeing that
backstory and the temporal shifts that all the characters go through, I think it
really sets up what’s coming forward and gives context to what we read in the
last issue.

Alex: The other thing that’s
interesting with the whole superteam of it all is we get to meet two
“superteams” in this issue. The first on is the Minutemen, which is
like an analog of the Justice Society of America but without super powers.
They’re all masked vigilantes. It seems a little bit more like a social club.
That’s really only how we get to see them together. We never get to see them
fight crime together. The second one is the Crimebusters, which as far as we
can tell, meets once, and that’s it.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Nothing else happens with them,
so again, it’s Moore and Gibbons and company really eschewing the
superhero-ness, the structure of it, where we would expect, okay, there’s a
team get together and then some big event breaks them apart, but in this case,
it’s just not the right time.

Justin: Yeah. And they’re not the right
people, and it doesn’t make sense. That’s what’s also so good about this is being
a superhero never makes sense for any of these characters in this comic, and
it’s great. They’re either way off, they’re not good people, or they’re just
way beyond it like Doctor Manhattan.

Alex: We talked about this a little
bit in the first two episodes of the podcast with Rorschach, and I think this
very heavily comes up here in terms of how people misinterpret Watchmen that
being a superhero is bad. It is clearly a bad thing to do, it’s not a good
lifestyle choice. There’s nothing to hope for, and in fact, there’s a pretty
good argument to be made, particularly after this issue, that the rise of
superheroes leads to a worse world than we are currently in. They do not make
it better the way that they do in the DC Comics Universe or the Marvel Comics Universe.
Their addition cuts down on crime maybe, but it makes things ultimately worse.

Justin: Yeah. Should we walk through the
issue a little bit?

Alex: Yeah, sure. Well, actually
before we do though, there was one thing, an overall thing that I wanted to
talk about which is The Comedian. He’s the focus of this issue. His character
is the focus of this issue. He’s not that funny, it seems.

Justin: No, he’s a dick.

Alex: That’s surprising with his name
the way it is.

Justin: Yeah. What a weird accident.

Alex: Yeah.

Pete: You want to stop and explore
that some more?

Justin: He should have been The Tragedian.

Alex: Well, I mean, this gets back to
the juxtaposition as well, right? The Comedian, do you think … He certainly
makes this argument, but do you think The Comedian is the one who actually sees
the world the way it is? Is he actually seeing some joke there, or is it the
juxtaposition of, well, he is The Comedian, but he’s not funny at all?

Justin: I think, yeah, it’s the
juxtaposition. In the original Minutemen, he’s the goofiest, yet he’s the one
who assaults Sally Jupiter. In this issue, he’s wearing an old-timey, Italian
clown uniform. Then later in Crimebusters, he’s just being a regular dick, and
he’s sort of dressed like a ’90s superhero. He actually dresses like NFL
SuperPro a little bit.

Alex: Yeah, he does a little bit.

Justin: Which is a funny connection. I
doubt that was purposeful. And then, you see him doing more horrible things. He
shoots a woman who is carrying his baby in Vietnam, and we get to see that
happen, and then The Comedian moving forward. I think he’s meant to be a
reflection of the time, the different time periods. Back in the ’50s, ’60s,
everything is bright and sunny, but all the horrifying things are happening
behind closed doors. In Vietnam, it’s like Americans are being horrible
overseas. It is that sort of satirical take and juxtaposing this thing called
The Comedian. The bright veneer we paint over everything overlays horrifying
actions.

Alex: He is definitely a representation
of America. I think that’s very clear. It’s possible he might also be Alan
Moore commentating on comedy in comic books because Alan Moore, maybe not so
much at this time, but famously hates comic books. We know that when we hang
out with him off of this podcast.

Justin: Yeah, let me text him that
question and see what he says.

Alex: Yeah, well, maybe he can bring
it up on the next episode, but comic book superheroes aren’t actually usually
very funny, and so it’s possible he might be amping that up because he is one
of the only ones that actually acts like a comic book superhero. It might be
that he’s hitting this very old-timey kind of humor, which is like, “Hey
toots, why don’t you take off your dress?” And everybody is like,
“Haha,” but it’s not actually funny in a particular way.

Justin: It’s saying the horrifying thing
or saying the thing that this person actually wants to happen.

Alex: Exactly. So, that all said, I
was curious because I think that’s an overall character thing that we delve
into pretty deeply in this issue. But, yeah, let’s walk through it.

Justin: The first couple scenes we have
here are Laurie talking to her mom. They don’t get along very well. Sally sort
of wishes she was young again, basically, and is sort of bitter about the world,
saying she would rather go back to the life she had back then even though it’s
horrible. They set up the sexual assault from The Comedian.

Alex: This also ties into something
that we find out later, which is … Not Laurie. Sally.

Justin: Sally.

Alex: I keep mixing them up. Sally
does not like herself very much. They pull out that Tijuana Bible or whatever
it is that has her in a cartoon form. Somebody is having sex with her. Laurie
hates it. Sally kind of likes it, and is flattered by it. It’s, again, not to
keep using the word juxtaposition, but it’s a very interesting juxtaposition of
as terrible as things were for her, she has this sadness and vanity about the
olden times. Again, if you get into the comic book of it all because really, if
nothing else, Watchmen is a comic book that is commenting on comic books, you
can look at that as that nostalgia for the “golden age of comic
books” that, “Bad things happened, but overall, wasn’t it so
wonderful, and everything was so beautiful. Wasn’t that great?”

Justin: Yeah. Someone who would dress up
in a costume … None of these people have powers. They’re just regular people,
and be like, “I’m going to go do this,” is goofy and vain.

Alex: Right.

Justin: To take that for real, I thought,
is interesting.

Alex: And we find out more about
that, I believe, in the under the hood section at the end where Hollis Mason
talks about she was the first one to be like, “Hey, I’ll have a PR agent.
What do you think about that?” She did it for the PR more than anything, more
than the crime fighting.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: So, that’s sad. It’s a sad
character.

Justin: Indeed. So, we flash from that, as
Pete said, from the picture frame in the reflection to a flashbulb where we get
to see Sally and the rest of the Minutemen. Their costumes are all sort of
goofy, I mean, very much like the actual golden age comics where it’s
ridiculous. Dave Gibbons does such a good job of showing them as goofy people,
and then you see this horrifying sexual assault scene where they’re all in
their costumes, but they’re talking like regular people doing horrifying
things.

Alex: There’s an interesting thing
that happened in the first issue as well. I mean, it’s a pretty typically
camera angle thing which is, again, one of the things that I don’t think was
unique necessarily to this comic book but that Dave Gibbons did so well is
using [filmic 00:14:30] framing angles for things. There’s a shot, I believe,
of The Comedian on the floor between Hooded Justice’s legs, which is very
similar to a shot of The Comedian from the first issue where it’s showing that
Hooded Justice is dominant over him. Even if The Comedian pushes himself as
this uber mal, he’s really not. The other thing that happens, I believe … I
don’t remember which panel it is, but one of the panels in there, there’s a
splash of blood on The Comedian that he’s wiping off that is the same as the
splash of blood that’s on the button from the first issue.

Justin: Yeah.

Pete: Wow.

Justin: Showing that when he dies, he’s
still marred by all these horrifying things he’s done. He’s not a hero at all,
and he goes out as not a hero.

Alex: Yeah. Again, I know we keep
going back to, “Hey, great comic.” Big surprise, but it’s also the
layers of preparation that they clearly did to put this together. This is very
different from a modern comic book where it doesn’t get the chance to plan it
in advance, right?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: You got to meet that monthly
schedule, so at most, they have three to four issues ready before they go.
Here, I don’t know this for a fact, but I have to assume they had everything
planned out before they were ready to go.

Justin: It’s so meticulous. Every frame,
every panel means something. The last panel of this scene, you see Hooded
Justice who stops the assault is still such a jerk to Sally. He doesn’t help
her really. He says, “Get up, and for God’s sake, cover yourself.”
He’s the hero of that scene, and he’s still a monster. She is surrounded by
monsters. And then, it cuts right back to this Tijuana Bible thing, and it just
shows that, yes, she’s unhappy, but she’s dealt with all these horrifying
things all the time.

Alex: Right. Well, let’s talk about
Hooded Justice for a second. He’s just a fascinating character who isn’t dealt
with, as far as I remember, a ton in the comic book series. But he’s the first
hero that comes out. He’s the one that sparks all of it, but he’s also the only
one that really fully hides his face.

Justin: Yeah, you never see it.

Alex: Right. Part of that, if I
remember correctly, he’s gay, right?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: I think that’s what-

Pete: Because that’s the joke The
Comedian makes when he’s being beaten up by him. He’s like, “You’re liking
this, aren’t you?” That makes the Hooded Justice stop.

Alex: Right. That makes him stop, and
that’s why he takes that pain and that shame of being homosexual and throws it
right back on her. Again, this is painting the times that they live in, the
fact that it isn’t necessarily accepted at all. He’s scared of it coming out
and people finding him out, so he takes it out on Sally.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: But yeah, then we get this
memory from Adrian Veidt. This was another interesting thing that I was reading
some notes on this. I didn’t necessarily every pick up on this before, but
Ozymandias’s costume is the same colors, I believe, as The Comedian’s original
costume. So, if anything, there’s something there in terms of him picking up
from where The Comedian left off.

Justin: Purple and yellow, being the
villain.

Alex: Right. It’s almost a reverse. Looking
at this panel right now, we’re looking at the big panel of the first meeting of
the Crimebusters, and Ozymandias has this purple swoop versus the part that
left over … The part that is yellow on his neck is the part that was purple
on The Comedian, so in a way, he’s almost the opposite of The Comedian.

Justin: Right. That’s cool. They’re not
facing each other. This, we get Captain Metropolis who is forming the
Crimebusters. He’s still in the golden age dressed like a goof. Then, it’s this
random mix of people. Ozymandias, we talked about his costume, but he’s also
dressed like a god as opposed to everyone else that’s sort of in various stages
of superhero dress. The fact that he ends up sort of coming out of here squeaky
clean based on his confidence, basically, is interesting I think.

Alex: The other thing that’s
fascinating about this scene, particularly when you’re going through the book a
second time, which wouldn’t have been ultimately clear the first time through,
is this is Adrian Veidt’s memory of this meeting of the Crimebusters where
Captain Metropolis is proposing this plan. He says, “Look at all these
things going on in the world.” It’s fascinating that he mentions, I think,
it’s promiscuity and other things like that. The Comedian is like, “This
sucks. This is a stupid plan. You’re never going to do this. You just got to
burn it all down and figure out what to do next,” and Adrian Veidt is
looking at the map. Through the lens of this just being the second issue and us
thinking Ozymandias is a hero and the smartest man alive, you would think he’s
lamenting it. He’s going, “Oh, no, we can save the world. We can figure
out another way to do this. This is so sad.” But in actuality, The
Comedian is giving Adrian his plan.

Justin: Yeah. And you see it right in the
second to last panel of the scene where Ozymandias is looking at the burn page
with the words, “Somebody has to save the world.” It’s all right
there.

Alex: Yes. That’s something that I
think is very undervalued about this series in particular is what a good
mystery it is. It’s very well-constructed as a mystery, not just as a superhero
series. Not just in terms of the characters and the commentary on it, but the
fact that it is a very good mystery that you really cannot figure out until the
end, but all the clues are there the entire time.

Justin: Yeah, and that’s why on a second
and third read, you really get to see so much more as it’s going. We get this
next scene with Doctor Manhattan’s memory of his time in Vietnam with The Comedian.
It’s just horrifying. The Comedian is being reckless. He shoots this woman
after she cuts his face, revealing that she’s pregnant, and Doc Manhattan
doesn’t stop him, even though he definitely could.

Alex: Yeah. The other thing, one
thing that I’ll mention that’s also great about these memories, these stories
that we get throughout, is we are learning more about Eddie Blake as we go,
plot-wise, but really we’re learning about the characters who are remembering
the stories. The big thing with Doctor Manhattan here is he doesn’t stop Eddie
Blake from shooting a pregnant woman. He’s also standing in the middle of a
table at the time and doesn’t notice it. So, what we find out about Doctor
Manhattan is, even at this early point in his career, he’s already retreated
from humanity. He can’t relate to human beings.

Justin: Yeah. He doesn’t feel. He’s almost
sociopathic in his understanding of the situation. He’s just like a scientist
viewing it from afar without any empathy for the situation.

Pete: Yeah, and that kind of really
shows in the way he’s standing in the table, and it’s the same stance as … In
both places, he’s looking over a dead body.

Alex: Yeah.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: And then, we get the Owlship
flashback, right?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Now this is where we get to see
the new mask that The Comedian is wearing. It’s a full face mask. Looks like a
gimp mask, which he likes to torture people, so I think that’s at least part of
the inspiration that’s going on there. But to set it in time, I believe, this
is when the Vietnam War either kicked off, or they dropped the bomb or
something like that. It’s one of those moments. It’s not particularly clear in
the book, but we get to see them going to the streets, trying to act like
superheroes, and I believe this is what ultimately leads to the Keen Act, which
is the act they pass where they shut down vigilantes except for
government-sponsored ones, clearly leading into the Ironman-Captain America
civil war that happens later in the series.

Justin: 100%, yeah. That’s, I think, issue
nine.

Alex: It’s weird that they brought
them in at that point, but it worked really well.

Justin: This is where we fully get a look
at the phrase, “Who watches the Watchmen,” being painted in the wall,
which has been sort of alluded-

Alex: But still not completely.

Justin: Not completed.

Alex: It’s still blocked.

Justin: But it’s the first time it’s
featured.

Alex: Right.

Justin: So, really starting to get … I
think that’s sort of the completion of the first act almost, or the table is
set for the rest of the story. This is sort of just a dark … Everything sucks
with these characters. Owl Man is just like, “Don’t do that.”

Alex: Nite Owl.

Justin: Sorry, Nite Owl. I keep saying
that wrong.

Alex: You keep calling him Owl Man.

Justin: Yeah, I don’t know why.

Alex: There is a character called Owl
Man.

Justin: It’s true. Nite Owl, I just never
have liked his name.

Alex: Really?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Why not?

Justin: Because it’s a phrase as opposed
to a name.

Alex: Yeah. Well, that’s where it
comes from. Hollis Mason talks about that in Under the Hood. He says that he
was looking for name. He wasn’t sure what to do, and he would never go out to a
drink with this co-worker of his. Instead he wanted to go workout because he
was trying to figure out how to be a superhero. He was like, “Oh, you’re
always such a night owl,” and he was like, “Yeah, Nite Owl. That’s
me.”

Justin: Yeah. Again, stupid. Not a great
origin story.

Alex: The existence of Nite Owl
implies the existence of a day owl.

Justin: That’s true. Find the day owl. We
get a moment where the new Nite Owl has Comedian’s pin, a clean one, no blood
on it, and throws it onto the grave. I feel like what is this? What is this
supposed to mean? Why is he the one that throws the pin?

Alex: Dan?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: I don’t know. These parallel,
the way the button falls down is very similar to the way the button falls down
in the first issue. So, it’s some sort of parallel on him dying again, right?
Or putting the final nail in the coffin or something like that?

Justin: Yeah. Maybe setting him up as more
of the hero here or keying him as the main character. Not sure.

Alex: Yeah. I mean, there’s also some
stuff in here with him approaching Doctor Manhattan when already Dan, whether
Doctor Manhattan knows it or not, has become his romantic rival for Laurie’s
affections.

Justin: Yes. Nobody knows it really here.

Alex: Right. But it’s pretty clear
when you’re reading it that it’s setting them up. There’s that shot of them
having the handshake where it’s like, “Oh, here we go.”

Justin: Yeah. Doc Manhattan is just
looking around. “Who’s going to try to fuck my wife,” is what he’s
thinking.

Alex: Which one of you fuckers …

Justin: Rorschach leaves silently. And
then, we get this great, awesomely drawn sequence of Rorschach going after
Moloch, the former villain for Doc Manhattan.

Pete: This is when the shading and
lighting of the panels really takes off. From this point on, it’s really just
unbelievably beautiful.

Alex: Yeah. The Moloch thing is
interesting because it introduces supervillains who were teased, I was about to
say weirdly enough, but appropriately enough during the rape/assault sequence.
That’s the time where you get to see their trophy room. You get to see a lens that
Moloch set up before which paints him as sort of this goofy, ’60s-style
villain. Sort of very Adam West, Batman-y-style villain, which obviously he’s
not here at the end. We also see, it’s called Killer Ape or Gorilla Man or
something like that. There’s some sort of mask in the trophy room as well,
which I think emphasizes the animalistic nature of what Eddie Blake is doing to
Sally at that moment. But we never really see any supervillain action. To the
point of the superheroics, we haven’t really had them established other than
that glimpse. Here, we finally get to see Moloch, and he is a cancer-ridden
husk of himself.

Justin: Yeah. Sad. You wonder how this man
could have ever threatened Doctor Manhattan who is all-powerful, basically. He
tells this story of The Comedian coming to visit him and basically saying,
“The world is fucked,” after he’s realized sort of the plot that we
ourselves, the reader, find out later.

Alex: He talks about the island a
little bit. He talks about some writers and other things, I believe, throughout
the scene, which teases again. If you’re reading it through the second time,
you know that Veidt is setting up this big story and teasing and building this
thing, but it’s very unclear exactly what The Comedian is talking about at this
point to anybody who hasn’t read Watchmen.

Justin: Yeah. And he sets up Janie Slater
who is Doctor Manhattan’s first wife, I believe, which we learn about later on
in the series. It’s just such a haunting scene because you are seeing it
through the eyes of this ruined villain, and it just sets up all this tension
that we have no idea, this conspiracy that really put The Comedian to his
death. It really feeds in to Rorschach’s panic and his actual believing. He’s a
conspiracy theorist, and this is proving to be true.

Alex: Well, to the point, I may have
the time period a little bit wrong, but if The Comedian is a reflection of
America in a very similar way to Captain America is over in Marvel Comics, this
is the point, the late ’70s, early ’80s or so when America started to realize,
“Oh, wait. We’ve fucked everything up.”

Justin: Yeah. American disillusionment.

Alex: Exactly. It certainly came
earlier than that, but whether it’s hitting The Comedian late or not, that’s
what’s going on there. He’s realizing there’s all of these things going on
behind the scenes that he’s not the big man about. He’s not the guy in charge.
He’s not the most important thing in the story. Everything else is happening
around him. I think ultimately that’s why he dies, right?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Because he has reached the end
of his usefulness. His time is literally over.

Justin: Yeah. He’s done too many horrible
things to continue on.

Alex: Yeah, he should have died
earlier.

Justin: He’s being replaced by this new
world order that we come to find out later is Ozymandias’s sort of stake.

Alex: Yeah. Who among us has not been
replaced by a squid?

Justin: Yeah, indeed. I also think the
death of The Comedian is sort of where the fiction starts. I think The Comedian
is meant to represent what America actually did, and this is sort of the flight
of fancy out of it where we realize the consequences or a take on what could
happen to bring the world back together. We get the famous Pagliacci joke at
the end which is great.

Alex: Great joke. Actually very
funny.

Justin: Super funny.

Alex: After The Comedian not being
funny for an issue, funny joke at the end, huh?

Justin: Hilarious. And the last image we
see here is Rorschach grabbing a flower off of Eddie’s grave and taking it with
him.

Pete: Which is cool because we see
earlier in this issue, everybody is putting things into the grave, right?
They’re putting the body down, they’re throwing the pins in. Rorschach comes
and takes something.

Justin: That’s great, yeah. Because
everyone is putting away their memories. They’re like, “This guy who did
bad things, I don’t want to think about this anymore.” He’s like,
“I’m going to take this clue with me on into the rest of the
mystery.”

Alex: Yeah, and to what we were
talking about with the first issue as well though, that’s Rorschach kind of
going off in the wrong direction, right? He is holding on to this Comedian
mystery that is part of it, but he doesn’t know what it is quite yet.

Pete: And again, the shading and the
paneling. From panel to panel, completely different time periods flow so
nicely. But also, there was a panel where it was the same part of the
newspaper, and then the next panel is just a bigger part. So cool.

Justin: Very cool.

Alex: Now, one thing that I did want
to point out actually because I was looking at both of your guys’ copies. You
have a paperback print copy, Pete, and you’re looking at it on your computer.
The coloring is different on both of them.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: So, in Pete’s I think it’s a
little bit closer because the roses, I believe, are the same red as the blood
on The Comedian in the first issue. So, when Rorschach is walking through the
blood at the beginning, at the end of the second issue, he’s pulling it back
out again. So, I don’t know. It’s interesting. I assume there’s an absolute
edition out there somewhere with the correct colors, but it certainly affects
the experience quite a bit. Guys, thank you so much for listening to Watchmen
Watch. We will be back with the third issue pretty soon.

Justin: Very soon.

Alex: Check out all the ways to
subscribe at comicbookclublive.com. You can support this podcast and more.
Patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also mention, you can follow us a bunch of places,
@watchmenwatch1 on Twitter. Also on Facebook and Instagram, Watchmen Watch
Podcast, you can check them out there. We got some shirts. We got shirts, guys.

Justin: Get those shirts on.

Alex: Comicbookclub.threadless.com,
check it out there. And remember, we taped this podcast 35 minutes ago.

Justin: Alan just texted me, and he said
he’ll definitely be here for the next episode.

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/11/the-stack-king-thor-field-tripping-and-more/feed/013600Comic Book Club: Asha Davishttps://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/comic-book-club-asha-davis-2/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/comic-book-club-asha-davis-2/#respondWed, 11 Sep 2019 01:58:44 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13608Comedian Asha Davis returns to the show to chat Batman, M&Ms, and so much more! Check out the website at comicbookclublive.com to find out how to watch the show live! And follow the show on Twitter: @comicbooklive, @azalben, @jtsizzle, and @realpetelepage

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/comic-book-club-asha-davis-2/feed/013608Watchmen Watch: How To Listen To The Podcasthttps://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/watchmen-watch-how-to-listen-to-the-podcast/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/watchmen-watch-how-to-listen-to-the-podcast/#respondTue, 10 Sep 2019 20:00:31 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13606Sure we all know who watches the Watchmen (hint: pirates), but who listens to Watchmen Watch? Hopefully, you do, as we’ve officially launched our brand new podcast focusing on Watchmen everywhere. Based on the classic comic book series and graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, HBO’s Watchmen will debut on October 20, and […]

]]>Sure we all know who watches the Watchmen (hint: pirates), but who listens to Watchmen Watch? Hopefully, you do, as we’ve officially launched our brand new podcast focusing on Watchmen everywhere.

Based on the classic comic book series and graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, HBO’s Watchmen will debut on October 20, and present a sequel of sorts to the series. You’ll see characters you know, a lot you don’t, and overall it seems like it’ll be a good time for fans of the comics and new fans alike.

To get prepped, we’re rolling out out Watchmen podcast over a month early, kicking things off with a preview episode. From there, we’re taking a journey back through Moore and Gibbons’ series, one issue at a time. New episodes focusing on each individual issue of Watchmen launch on this very site every Monday and Thursday. Once the HBO series premieres (again, on October 20), we’ll move to a weekly schedule, with Watchmen Watch podcast episodes posting after the episodes air, Sundays on HBO.

But silly me, you want to know how to listen to Watchmen Watch. As mentioned, it rolls out on this very website, comicbookclublive.com. New episodes post at 8 a.m. Eastern Time on Mondays and Thursdays. If you prefer your podcasts in video form, you can also check out the episodes as they post on our YouTube channel, at the same times.

How to Listen

That’s not all, folks! You can subscribe and listen via RSS, on iTunes, Android, Stitcher, Spotify, or the app of your choice. A few other options for your app needs:

…with more to come. Don’t see your fave app here? Let us know at comicbookclublive at gmail dot com, and we’ll work on getting it set up. And if you do subscribe via any of those apps, would you be so kind as to rate us and leave a comment? It’s what Rorschach would have wanted.

Watchmen Watch Social Channels

We’ve also got a few dedicated social channels for this podcast: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Oh, and if you’d like to help support the podcast, here’s our Patreon link. That money goes directly to things like the episodic transcriptions, and hosting support.

Listen Right Here:

Finally, if you just want to listen to the most recent podcasts, you can do that here. And remember, we taped them 35 minutes ago.

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/watchmen-watch-how-to-listen-to-the-podcast/feed/013606Preacher Men: “Messiahs”https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/preacher-men-messiahs/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/preacher-men-messiahs/#respondTue, 10 Sep 2019 12:00:41 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13603Jesse is dead, long live Jesse, as Tulip and Cassidy get ready to exact their revenge on God, and we recap “Messiahs”.

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/10/preacher-men-messiahs/feed/013603Watchmen Watch: Issue #1, “At Midnight, All the Agents…”https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/09/watchmen-watch-issue-1-at-midnight-all-the-agents/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/09/watchmen-watch-issue-1-at-midnight-all-the-agents/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2019 12:00:07 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13548Our Watchmen podcast kicks off in earnest as we break down the first issue of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal comic book series, “At Midnight, All the Agents…” Spoilers abound, but find out more about the structure behind the issue, Easter eggs, and how it all might tie into the upcoming HBO series of […]

]]>Our Watchmen podcast kicks off in earnest as we break down the first issue of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal comic book series, “At Midnight, All the Agents…” Spoilers abound, but find out more about the structure behind the issue, Easter eggs, and how it all might tie into the upcoming HBO series of the same name.

Alex: Now, we do need to apologize
before we get into the bulk of our podcast. We do have a fourth cohost.

Justin: Alan Moore is our fourth host for
this. He… We should say the writer of Watchmen, the comic book.

Alex: Yeah, so we’re very excited to
have him on board.

Justin: And eventually, obviously he took
his name off of the movie and the other comic book versions of it, and he was
going to be here today but he actually isn’t here. He’s actually at DC comics
physically taking his name off the comics.

Alex: Oh wow.

Pete: Oh wow.

Alex: That’s going to take him a
while. They have a lot of copies.

Pete: Yeah, it’s a long [crosstalk
00:00:52].

Justin: But he’s going to be here, he said
he’s definitely going to be here next week to talk about-

Alex: Well he better hurry up because
Watchmen is I think the highest selling graphic novel of all time.

Justin: It’s got a lot of-

Alex: A lot of copies.

Justin: A lot of white out. A lot of white
out coming in.

Alex: This guy is going to have to
invest in it.

Justin: Yes, no, and he likes to smell it
a little bit as well.

Pete: It’s going to take more time.

Alex: You probably know this, but
Watchmen the TV series, is not going to be on until October on HBO. So in the
intervening time, what we’re going to be doing on the next 12 episodes of
Watchmen Watch is we’re going to be looking back at the comic issue by issue.
And this week we’re going to be talking about the first issue of Watchmen At
Midnight, All the Agents. That’s based on a Bob Dylan quote, I believe you
dudes.

Justin: Yep.

Alex: Let’s talk about this issue. I
don’t know. I want to be honest about something upfront here.

Pete: Oh, here we go.

Alex: I want to be honest with you
guys.

Justin: Ooh. Confessions.

Pete: Oh. Confessions.

Alex: I read Watchmen, all in a
chunk, probably decades ago at this point.

Justin: Wow.

Alex: I think I read it maybe, or
skimmed it again, before the movie came out just so I could kind of familiarize
myself with it. But it’s been years since I actually read this book.

Pete: Are you talking about the 80s?
It’s been since the 80s?

Alex: The Zack Snyder Watchmen movie
did not come out in the 80s. What is your joke?

Pete: I don’t know.

Justin: The 80s is when it came out.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: That’s when you were there.

Alex: The book. Yes. He was there
when Alan Moore was like, “The end.”

Justin: That’s why we got the connect.

Pete: Yeah. That’s how we got the
phone number.

Alex: Anyway, I haven’t actually
deeply read it in decades at this point. So doing that for this podcast,
actually taking the time to make sure that I synthesized as much of the words,
of the panels, and everything as possible, was first of all fascinating.
Because I don’t know if you guys know this, this is a very good comic.

Justin: This is a very good comic.

Alex: Yes. It’s very well done. Alan
Moore, good on writing. Dave Gibbons, very good on art.

Justin: He’s good on writing.

Alex: Yes.

Justin: He’s good on writing.

Pete: Very good on writing.

Justin: He’s as good on writing as you are
on saying that.

Alex: Yes, John Higgins on color. And
it was edited by Len Wein and Barbara Kesel. This is… I really honestly was
kind of blown away by how good this is.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Because we do a regular live
comic book talk show.

Pete: We do.

Alex: Watchmen comes up a lot when
we’re talking about it.

Justin: Yep.

Pete: Certainly.

Alex: So it’s almost become abstract
to me in terms of like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the best comic book of
all time. I get it. That’s fine.”

Justin: Yeah, no exactly. You don’t think
about it as much anymore.

Alex: Right, but this is legitimately
an excellent comic book.

Justin: Breaking news. Breaking news.

Pete: [crosstalk 00:03:28] blown away
you are by this comic.

Justin: I felt the same way because…
Like Alex was saying, actually rereading it, the pacing of this comic book is
unbelievable.

Justin: Just how much control Alan Moore
has of the story from the jump and the art on top of that is just so good. Dave
Gibbons’ art, it’s so… It’s of the era but it also feels timeless. It has a
lot of the sort of dark shadowing to it, which gives it this sort of tense,
bleak tone, but it still feels just as relevant as modern art.

Alex: Well, I think just real quick,
the thing that I was going to say about the timeless thing, the thing that
struck me is so many things you go back and read and you’re like, “Oh
that, I can see how that worked at the time, why it was important.”

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: This is still a very good comic
book.

Pete: And it’s also one of those
things where the imagery and the stuff that they use in comics, everything that
I see kind of informs them. It’s like one of those things that sticks with you.
When I picture someone getting thrown out of a window, it’s always The
Comedian.

Justin: Yeah. What you picture often,
right?

Pete: Yeah.

Alex: Usually as you’re being thrown
out a window.

Pete: But it’s done so iconically and
so well-

Justin: First story windows.

Pete: Everything after that blows.

Justin: Yeah. The 9-panel grid that, it’s
used in this is sort of a, and it’s not all… There’s not nine panels on every
page, but using that grid as a basis, I feel like that’s something that a lot
of comic book artists are coming back to now.

Pete: Yeah. Especially recently.

Justin: I also want to say in the 80s,
this was in sort of the Cold War, like nuclear threat that definitely weighs
heavily on this series. And now we’re sort of back in international politics
being terrifying. Our American politics being expressed-

Pete: Keanu Reeves is popular again.
It’s like the 80s all over again.

Justin: He really weighs in here, the
Keanu Reeves of it all. So I do think rereading it now just in 2019 with our
politics and culture definitely feels more relevant now than it did even when I
read it in the 90s.

Pete: Oh wow.

Alex: Right. Well, you do have the
whole weight of the Doomsday Clock playing throughout it and that’s something
we regularly hear about right now.

Justin: It’s close.

Alex: Yes.

Justin: To Midnight in our time, now.

Alex: It is.

Justin: I think we’re going to get

[squidded 00:05:45]

right here in New York City.

Pete: Oh man.

Justin: That would be-

Alex: Squidded right here in New York
City.

Justin: That would be a fun surprise.

Pete: We should move, guys. We should
move.

Justin: But do you think… It wouldn’t
have the same impact because if we got squidded, we’d be like, “Oh,
squid.”

Justin: So we start with, as Pete
mentioned, a recap. Two cops are talking about the death of The Comedian.

Alex: Well, so let’s… This is one
other… I mean I was struck by a lot in the issue.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: But one of the things I definitely
did not pick up on the first couple of times that I read it, is you have this
first page, it starts on The Comedian’s, now iconic, button in a pool of blood.
It pulls up, up, up, up, up as it goes up to this cop saying… What does he
say? “It’s a long drop?”

Justin: “Hmm. That’s quite a
drop.”

Alex: “That’s quite a
drop.” You have Rorschach’s [crosstalk 00:06:36] narration over the entire
thing, but you also have the guy that we don’t know yet is Rorschach walking
through the blood, trailing the blood as he goes.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Pulling it with him. He’s
pulling this death with him, which I think is very cool.

Pete: Yeah, he’s a creepy dude.

Justin: Yeah, as the cops are leaving
that’s when you really see Rorschach for the first time.

Pete: Right.

Alex: And we still don’t… In this
issue-

Justin: We do not.

Alex: We don’t know that he’s
Rorschach.

Justin: No.

Alex: But he is. This red-haired man
is Rorschach as we find out later in the series. But the thing that I thought
was so neat, when you look at it, is there’s three things in the issue, right?
There’s this first page where the cops are looking down at the pool of [blotted
death 00:00:07:12]. You have the final page where you have Dan Dreiberg and
Laurie Blake? Wait, Laurie-

Justin: Laurie Jupiter or Juspeczyk.

Alex: Jupiter. Yeah, exactly. Not
Laurie Blake. She’s Laurie Blake in the TV series. Laurie standing on that
rooftop and you have the same zoom-out at the same pace looking down above
them, which could imply that that’s another murder. That we’ve watched another
death happening at the same time.

Alex: But then you also have
Rorschach’s narration saying, “And I would look down at them and I would
say no.”

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: There’s so many different
layered things going on here at the same time.

Justin: And to add another layer, at that
last panel to me, it’s Doctor Manhattan spying on them-

Alex: Yes.

Justin: As Nite Owl’s out with his wife.

Alex: Right. And it’s his heart
dying, potentially. Well, if Doctor Manhattan potentially has a heart.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: I mean that’s really up for-

Pete: A heart breaking.

Alex: Exactly.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: The other thing that I was
really struck by in this issue as we walk through it, is it’s funny.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: That’s something that I think
people forget about Watchmen is there’s some funny moments. There’s some weird
moments in here. It’s not… The wrong lesson that so many people have taken
from Watchmen is, “You’ve got to make things dark and serious.”

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: And that’s not what this book
is about at all.

Justin: In fact, it is dark and serious,
but it’s the feeling, the way that lands is by having comedy, which creates a
greater distance between the laughs to the really dark stuff. So you’re really
on a roller coaster ride.

Pete: So you’re asking yourself,
“Why so serious?”

Justin: Right. That’s exactly what my
point is.

Pete: Yeah.

Alex: Yeah. Watchmen walked so the
Dark Knight could run.

Justin: Watchmen watched so the Dark
Knight could watch harder.

Pete: Harder.

Alex: So we got that first page, you
want to move to-

Justin: Yeah. So we have… And these
cops, they seem sort of [scumbaggy 00:08:59] cops. And they’re sort of the
heroes here.

Pete: Classic.

Justin: And we’re seeing, interspersed
with their investigation of the crime scene, you see flashback the murder
happening of The Comedian, which was… Just hadn’t seen that before when I
first read this. And, reading here, it’s really well-paced and it really
creates this essential mystery. And at the same time, we don’t know who The
Comedian is.

Alex: Right?

Justin: We don’t know this is a take on a
Justice League-type team until much later. Not even in this issue.

Alex: Yeah. There’s something this
issue does. Another thing this issue does very well, is introduce all the
characters in a very fluid way through both these detectives initially, and
then through Rorschach’s investigation where he approaches each of the
characters. But it never feels like, “And now meet this character. And now
meet this character.” And part of the reason is that Moore and Gibbons,
Gibbons through the body language of the characters, but Moore through the
writing, has set up all of these backstories and all this history. So people
are not coming into it as, “We are fresh friends who have met each other
for the first time.”

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: It’s when Nite Owl and
Rorschach see each other for the first time. It’s for the first time in years.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: And they broke apart and at
least one of them doesn’t know why.

Justin: And you feel the weight of their
relationship on all of these characters.

Alex: Yes.

Pete: I really do think that because
we read so many comic books, we can kind of tell at this point when people are
just moving characters around to get them to a certain thing for something they
have planned. And this is done in such a creative way. You don’t feel like
they’re just moving characters.

Alex: It’s very fluid in terms of
introducing the characters, in terms of the plot. Alan Moore, again, huge
shocker here, a very good writer. But he knows how to get us across both plot
and character at the same time because of all of the dialogue.

Justin: It would have been great if he was
here to answer some of these questions I’m asking [crosstalk 00:00:10:51].

Alex: It’s a real disappointment to
me.

Justin: He is going to be here next week,
as we keep saying.

Alex: Yes. I’m excited. We’ll save
some of the questions while we talk about episode two.

Justin: Definitely. Definitely.
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, so the spine of the issue is Rorschach sort of
going around to the different heroes and warning them like, “Hey, The
Comedian is dead and you might be next.”

Pete: Right.

Justin: And it’s telling them-

Pete: And what a good friend.

Justin: Yes, he’s a good friend but he
also is… He feels like he’s the one character after their super team broke
up. And you feel the sadness for everyone in different ways. Like Nite Owl,
he’s sad because he doesn’t have anything else going on in his life. He’s
visiting the original Nite Owl who also has a sad life and wrote a book about
superheroes. As he visits everyone, it’s clear it was a bad relationship. Their
relationships have not maintained throughout. But he’s the only one who’s sort
of still in his mode, on the case trying to figure this out.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: So you definitely identify with
him as the character, the hero driving through.

Pete: Oh yeah.

Justin: But some of the things we were
talking about before, he is saying some stuff that now, I’m in our modern politics
and culture. He’s saying some pretty out-right shit here.

Alex: Yes. I do not think you’re
supposed to identify with Rorschach at all.

Justin: Really?

Alex: No, I really don’t think so.

Pete: He’s the only guy I identify
with.

Alex: Really? What do you identify
with in him? And I’m scared to ask.

Pete: The way that he doesn’t trust
people, the way that he feels like he is creepier or dirtier than people. The
way he lives is different.

Justin: He’s an outsider?

Pete: He’s an outsider. Yeah, thank
you.

Justin: Yeah.

Pete: And also the fact that he covers
his face and doesn’t show people kind of who he is and what he’s about.

Justin: I think that’s the trap. That’s
the trap of what you were saying before about the lesson a lot of comic book
writers and companies took from this was like, “Oh, we gotta do
this.” I think now after we’ve read hundreds of issues of The Punisher and
all these other darker heroes that came out after Watchmen, it’s tricked us
into thinking we should identify with Rorschach when really he has just as
many-

Pete: Plus, he’s fucked up.

Alex: He’s violent.

Justin: He’s super violent.

Pete: Which is great.

Justin: He’s a loner. He considers the
rest of the world filth and just like an [abattoir 00:13:13].

Alex: Let’s talk about that a little
bit because his… It’s interesting. I’m sure there’s much better ways of
saying this in a much… There’s been so much research and writing about
Watchmen in the intervening years, but he’s Rorschach, right? Like his mask is
a fluid Rorschach test that people can ostensibly see whatever they want.

Justin: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Alex: They look at him and they see
whatever they want in him, but everybody sees the same thing in Rorschach.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Everybody sees exactly who he
is and he is pretty straight up exactly who he is at the same time. Versus
everybody else who is currently, they’re not wearing masks. They’re all
supposedly being who they are, including say, and this is a huge spoiler if
you’ve never watched Watchmen, but Adrian Veidt, Ozymandias, who is the real
villain of the series, he’s not wearing a mask right now. He’s not wearing a
costume. He’s like, “This is who I am. I’m a businessman. I’m smart, but
I’m not really the smartest man in the world. This is me upfront.” But
everybody else is hiding something.

Justin: Yeah, except Rorschach.

Alex: Rorschach’s the only one-

Pete: Rorschach’s [crosstalk 00:14:21]
honest one.

Justin: Rorschach is calling them out.
He’s going out and calling each of them out in these missions.

Alex: Right. So I guess what I was
getting around to is the point that I think he wants you to see whatever you
see in the world on him, but all he sees in the world is that filth. Is that
disgustingness, is everybody is airing on the side of bad. That’s why he makes
this, frankly crazy assumption off of one murder, that somebody is killing capes.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: You know, there’s really no
evidence there and he’s not necessarily wrong, but he’s not necessarily right
either. It’s because he goes to, The Comedian is dead, what is the worst case
scenario?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: And the worst case scenario is
they’re coming for all of us.

Pete: Right.

Alex: He lives walking through that
puddle of blood all the time.

Justin: And he comments so much on the
culture.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: But at the same time he’s a
reflection of all of the comments he’s making. He is the Rorschach test for the
culture.

Alex: Right.

Justin: But like some of the [outrights
00:15:18] tell you.

Pete: Are you okay, are you dying
there?

Justin: Sorry. Yeah, I’m choking. The
truth… Betraying even his own shallow liberal affectations. There’s just some
stuff in here that really hit me in this rereading of it in our modern world
where the… In all this kind of language and mentality really like
proliferates on Reddit and different spots on the internet where a lot of bad
shit comes out of it.

Alex: Yeah. Now, one other visual
thing that I really loved throughout the issue, just in terms of the body
language, there’s so many little subtle things that happen. There is a…
There’s a bunch of graffiti like, “Who watches the Watchmen?” But
it’s kind of cut off each time. I don’t think we see it fully each time it pops
up.

Justin: No.

Alex: There’s also pirate comics
throughout, which I think we should talk about the whole comic book, in a
second when we get to the Under the Hood, because there’s some fascinating
stuff there. But there’s this little moment where Rorschach takes a pocket full
of sugar cubes, they never talk about it, and then five pages later he’s eating
a sugar cube and it’s so gross. He’s like a fly who’s feasting on garbage the
entire time.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: He eats a can of cold beans.

Alex: I don’t know why you’re still
into this after we talked about it.

Pete: I love it. I love how gross he
is.

Alex: Let’s talk about the Doctor
Manhattan stuff.

Justin: Yeah, so after Rorschach goes to
Nite Owl, who’s living a sad life, he goes and beats up a bunch of people in a
bar.

Pete: Yeah!

Justin: To try, what Pete obviously likes,
to try to figure out… And they’re like-

Alex: I really think you’re taking
the wrong lessons from this comic book.

Justin: Yeah.

Pete: Cool.

Justin: It’s crazy though. He calls it his
exercise and it’s just… Because there’s no real, it was a one-person job
killing The Comedian. The fact that there would be henchmen there. It seems
like he’s doing this fully just to beat people up for [crosstalk 00:17:02].

Alex: Yeah. Absolutely.

Pete: Well, it’s his exercise. Some
people like to walk in the park. Other people have gym memberships. He goes to
a bar-

Justin: All equally reasonable things.

Pete: Yep.

Justin: He goes and talks to Ozymandias.
Veidt, who’s a corporate sellout basically, shits on him a little bit. Then he
goes to talk to Doctor Manhattan who lives in the… Works for the government,
is still ostensibly a mask. He’s distant from the world. We see this great
panel where he’s three stories tall to first meet him.

Alex: Yeah.

Justin: Such a great visual.

Alex: And everything else throughout
the book, for the most part, is very, very tight. It holds that 9-panel grid
until we see Doctor Manhattan where it completely opens up.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: And this gets to something that
I think… Also in particular, not to lump on it too much, but the Zack Snyder
movie got completely wrong about Watchmen, is these aren’t superheroes.

Justin: No.

Alex: These are regular people. Even
Adrian Veidt is, certainly he’s pushing down his intelligence a little bit.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: He’s trying to be modest about
it, but he’s not actually the smartest man in the world. He just has a lot of
resources at this point.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Same with Rorschach. Rorschach
isn’t super strong. The Comedian isn’t super strong. Superheroes have developed
in a way, but they’re really just humans.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: The one exception is Doctor
Manhattan. But the other thing that I think even everybody gets wrong about
Doctor Manhattan, that’s very clear in this issue, is he’s not all powerful.

Justin: No.

Alex: He doesn’t know everything and
he can’t do everything.

Justin: No, and he’s even learning about
his powers. The whole series is about him figuring out what it means to be this
sort of godlike person, but he doesn’t have command of it. And he’s so obsessed
with research that he’s not able… It’s not about power for him.

Alex: Right.

Justin: It’s about, “Oh, I can look
into this now.”

Alex: Right.

Justin: It’s like someone who would have
the internet for the first time. Like a scientist having the internet is what
Doctor Manhattan feels like in this.

Alex: Yeah. So we do get this great
character scene and we get to see a lot of what’s going on with Doctor
Manhattan. We get to see what’s going on with Laurie and also Rorschach, who
she doesn’t like at all. And then we get the other big plot that’s gonna play
out throughout the series, which they dance around for the first half of the
issue very purposely until Laurie comes out and says it, which is that The
Comedian raped her mom.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: He raped her mom, he assaulted
her mom. That came out during the Hollis Mason, who’s the original Nite Owl in
his book Under the Hood, and she believes the story. Rorschach is not 100%
sure, if I remember correctly.

Justin: Yeah. And she actually says
almost. She doesn’t say it.

Alex: Right.

Justin: So everyone, it’s like a suspicious,
you don’t know what the deal is in this moment.

Alex: Right. And we’re still learning
a lot about these characters. We don’t even really… We haven’t heard The
Comedian say a word.

Justin: We don’t know anything about
anything in this.

Alex: Right.

Justin: And it’s crazy how much they just
give us right out of the gate and we’re just like, “Okay, we’ll keep up
with this.” It’s dense in a great way.

Alex: And then at the end, we see
Nite Owl and Laurie end up going on a pseudo-date together.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: It’s not supposed to be a date.
It’s mostly catching up. But they both like it because they’re friends. One
thing that I do want to point out that I thought was kind of fascinating,
there’s little things here. This is an alternate history. It’s split off from
some point, both from our world, from the DC Universe, from anything else.
There are little things. I believe there’s a turkey there with four legs that
they’re serving at the restaurant. And there are other things like that that
give you little indicators, not just through the fashion but literally the
things that people are eating. The world is a little different.

Justin: Oh yeah.

Alex: Yeah.

Justin: That feels like… The turkey with
four legs feels like a mistake, but maybe not.

Alex: No, I don’t think it is.

Justin: Really? It’s so small in this
panel.

Alex: If you have a world, again
jumping to the end here, where Ozymandias is able to build genetically a cat
creature. He’s able to build a squid.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: What’s to say he hasn’t also
done that where, “Great, we’ve created a Turkey with a little more meat on
it.”

Justin: That’s true. That’s fair.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: We do get a mention of Action
Comics in the back matter, an excerpt from Under the Hood, which is the book
that the first Nite Owl read. Was sort of a superhero tell-all, which I reread
for this as well and man, it’s so good.

Alex: I want to say I reread it, but
this is another… This is the second thing I wanted to be honest with you guys
about, I don’t think I ever read it.

Justin: Oh really?

Alex: I don’t. I think I completely
was like, “Eh, word book. No thanks.”

Pete: Yeah, that’s exactly [crosstalk
00:21:12].

Alex: And I was so wrong because
reading it for this, I was blown away.

Justin: The first story, it’s sort of the
intro to the book and it’s just a story about him and his dad at this
auto-mechanic shop that he worked at. It’s such a great, short story.

Alex: It’s a great short story. It
parallels what went on in the first issue. But from a continuity standpoint,
when you’re talking about that alternative evolution, as you mentioned, he
talks about, Hollis Mason talks about, “Oh, I remember reading Action
Comics and seeing the introduction of Superman, but the alternate history of
Watchmen, what actually happened was they released Action Comics.” It was
big, people loved it, but then a couple of years later, the first vigilante
hooded justice showed up and then people didn’t need superhero comics anymore
because superheroes existed in real life and that’s why pirate comics became
the biggest thing.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: So when we link up in the
current continuity in Watchmen, everybody reads pirate comics and we’re going
to get into that pretty soon with the Black Freighter-

Pete: Curse of the Black Freighter.

Alex: Curse of the Black Freighter,
and everything else, which again provides a lot of parallels for what’s going
on. But yeah, I felt super dumb for having not read it that first time through.

Justin: Yeah, no, it’s so good. Just
rereading it I was like, “Oh right, I forgot how good this was.”

Alex: Yeah, definitely check out
Watchmen #1 from DC comics.

Justin: Well, you can’t recommend it.

Alex: Oh man.

Justin: Find it if you’re-

Pete: [Hard take 00:22:37]. Hard take.

Alex: All right. Next week we are
going to be talking about the second issue of Watchmen, so be sure to read it
before then if you want to check it out with us. And of course as the series
gets closer we’ll talk more and more about that. You could support this podcast
at patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at
8:00 PM at the Peoples Improv Theater Loft in New York. Come on by. We’ll chat
with you about Watchmen. Pete, what do you want to plug?

Pete: Find us on Facebook so you get
to know about the amazing guests we have on our live show.

Alex: Number one. Watch Watchmen
number one podcast. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and more. You can
subscribe all sorts of places. Our RSS feed is on the website and remember we
taped this podcast 35 minutes ago.

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/09/watchmen-watch-issue-1-at-midnight-all-the-agents/feed/213548Watchmen Watch: Previewhttps://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/05/watchmen-watch-preview/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/05/watchmen-watch-preview/#commentsThu, 05 Sep 2019 12:00:09 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13545Who watches HBO’s Watchmen? We do! In the preview episode of our Watchmen podcast, Alex, Justin and Pete discuss their experience with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic graphic novel, their thoughts on the movie version and predictions for the TV show, as well as general thoughts on Damon Lindelof’s shows, from LOST to The […]

]]>Who watches HBO’s Watchmen? We do! In the preview episode of our Watchmen podcast, Alex, Justin and Pete discuss their experience with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic graphic novel, their thoughts on the movie version and predictions for the TV show, as well as general thoughts on Damon Lindelof’s shows, from LOST to The Leftovers.

The theme music for Watchmen Watch was written and performed by Jeff Solomon.

Plus, here’s a transcript of the episode for you to read through as you listen:

Alex: Welcome to Watchmen Watch, a
podcast about HBO’s Watchmen. Who watches Watchmen Watch? We watch Watchmen
Watch, as we watch the Watchmen on HBO. I’m Alex.

Justin: I’m Justin.

Pete: I’m Pete. That’s a lot of
watching.

Justin: That’ll be easy for you to say
next time.

Alex: Yeah, no problem. I have it all
scripted down and definitely remember all of it.

Pete: No problem at all.

Justin: That’s true. For those of you
listening at home, he doesn’t have it scripted. He was just staring at us with
crazy bugged out eyes because it was a lot to say at once.

Alex: Now we do have an apology to
make unfortunately, our fourth cohost is not here today.

Justin: Yeah. Alan Moore is doing this
podcast with us. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be here today and today only. He’s
officiating a wedding between two hamsters in Northern Ireland. So, he has to
be there for that.

Pete: Love’s love.

Justin: He does a lot of those animal
weddings.

Alex: Yeah, he got ordained online.
Did you know that?

Justin: That’s really cool. It’s a great
way to do it.

Alex: Yes.

Justin: Are you an online minister?

Pete: No. No.

Justin: I am.

Pete: Are you?

Justin: I am.

Pete: Oh, really?

Justin: I can marry anything.

Alex: Great.

Pete: Wow. Anything?

Justin: You guys?

Alex: So this is going to be a
podcast about Watchmen, the HBO show, which is a show run by Damon Lindelof.
That’s going to be viewing some point in October. As of this recording, we
don’t know the exact date, so here’s how we’re going to run the show. We are
going to recap every episode of Watchmen as it happens on the podcast. But
leading up to it, we’re going to do a recap. We’re going to do a review both
for ourselves and for you guys of the Watchmen comic book of all 12 issues.

Justin: It’s a crash course in Watchmen for
everybody who wants to know what’s up with Watchmen before we get into the
series. Because the series, unlike the movie, the Zack Snyder movie was a very
faithful presentation of the comic.

Alex: What?

Justin: So we’re going to get into that as
well, but the HBO series is sort of a re-interpretation.

Alex: Right. We don’t know a lot
about it at this current time. David Lindelof and company have been very cagey
about it. They’ve called it, as you said, a re-interpretation. Maybe it’s a
sequel, maybe it’s a sidequel.

Alex: So we’ll see what happens with
that. But it is worth reviewing because clearly based on the footage that they
released of Watchmen, it’s going to have a lot of visual touchstones, character
names, other things going on there. It’s certainly been awhile since I read
Watchmen, so I’m excited to get back into it.

Justin: Yeah, me too.

Pete: I would like to say though that
the teaser they released looks really amazing. I’m excited.

Alex: It does look that fantastic.
Here’s what I think we could do on this first episode here. Let’s talk about
our experiences with Watchmen and then also thoughts on Damon Lindelof as a
showrunner because he’s definitely the driving force behind it. So let’s start
off with Watchmen. Pete, what is your experience with Watchmen? Obviously you
love the Zack Snyder movie.

Pete: No.

Alex: You watched that on a loop.

Pete: I did love the choice for
Rorschach in the movie. I thought everything else was kind of slightly garbage.
I like most people, the first time I read Watchmen, my mind was blown and I was
really impressed by the writing and the art of that, and I thought it was
really phenomenal.

Justin: I remember picking up a Watchmen
number, like seven, whatever the one with the perfume bottle on it is, in the
comic shop when I was just like … I pulled it out of a bin. I was like, oh,
what’s this? And I think I bought it and read it and it just didn’t know what
was going on. And then years later, I read the whole series in a trade
paperback and being like, oh wow, this feels, it just feels so much … There’s
so much more going on in this comic than in so many other comics I’ve read.

Alex: Yeah, I think I read it pretty
late actually. I definitely remember reading it as a trade collection, not in
individual issues or anything like that. I think it was well into my second
life as a comic book reader. I read-

Justin: Second life?

Alex: Well I read-

Justin: Because he died all-

Alex: Very briefly. Very briefly. I
drowned for a couple of days.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you’re from the
islands in Game of Thrones. What is dead may never die?

Alex: The iron islander.

Justin: You’re an iron Islander, Right?

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Justin: What is dead may never die.

Alex: Yup. That’s me. You know me.
Add my salt wives. Anyway, so I read comics as a kid, took a break for some of
high school and college.

Justin: To play football.

Alex: Yeah.

Justin: Quarterback hero.

Alex: And then I had that injury.

Justin: Yeah I know.

Alex: And then I picked up comic
books again and when that happened, I started reading a lot more trade
collections, getting caught up on things that I should have read anyway. And
watching it was one of those that I thought, wow, this is great. Very good
book. And from there, ended up reading a bunch of other Alan Moore books kind
of in a row, including Miracle Man and other things [crosstalk 00:04:42]

Justin: So you went on a tear. Yeah.

Pete: You went to on an Alan Moore
tear.

Justin: I think what’s important is-

Pete: It’s too bad that he’s not here,
you could tell that to them.

Alex: No, I know, I know. I was
really looking forward to it.

Justin: We had so many great questions for
him, he was-

Alex: He’ll be here to hear next
week.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: Yeah, he made A real promise to
us. Watchmen, if you haven’t read the comic and you’re listening to this, read
some other comics first.

Alex: Yes.

Pete: This is one thing that a lot of
people talk about with Watchmen. They’re like, oh, Watchmen was my first comic
book. I don’t understand it. And it’s like, of course you don’t. Watchmen is
really a postmodern … It sort of breaks down the comic book sort of mythos or
the Justice League or the Avenger’s type characters and really reframes and has
you look at it in a more realistic context. The Boys that’s just come out on
Amazon-

Pete: Great show.

Justin: Great show. Sort of has that as a
more modern version of that, beyond Watchmen. Watchmen was the first to really
sort of take a critical or postmodern look at comics.

Alex: And that’s one of the things
that I’m really hoping for from the TV show that in the same way that Watchmen
the comic was looking at comics that came before it and the history of comics
and reframing it in such a smart careful way. I hope they do that with the TV
or film the media. But you know, I hope they extend that in some way. Because
frankly, and I’m curious to see if we’ll have time to get to this accident or
film before we get into the TV show.

Justin: We will.

Alex: One of the big faults for that
is it straight adapted the comic book and that just didn’t work for me when I
saw it.

Justin: Yeah, no it was cool to see the
visuals-

Alex: Yes.

Justin: … there. And it was shot well
visually. But it didn’t have any of the sort … I was just talking about sort
of the density of ideas or like the actual take on what we were seeing. It was
just sort of like a puppet show of the characters from Watchmen.

Pete: One thing I’m curious about is
what’s your guys favorite part of Watchmen? Because there’s so much different
stuff. There’s stuff in between chapters, different characters, different takes
on things. What was your-

Justin: Black Freighter.

Pete: Yeah. What was your favorite
kind of part about it or of your favorite character?

Justin: Tough, tough question. I mean it’s
such a quilt of these characters. It’s hard to pick out, I guess. I mean, I
guess I like the Owlman, Silk Spectre romance-

Alex: Yeah. That’s the thing that
feels the most human probably, I mean purposefully so.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: I think I like that as well.

Justin: They’re sort of the heroes.

Alex: Can I make a guess, Pete?

Pete: Yeah.

Alex: Was it Rorschach?

Pete: Yeah.

Alex: Yeah. Okay.

Justin: What about you?

Alex: That’s going to be a problem. I
would also say Night Owl.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah.

Alex: I think that was the one that I
related to the most. Certainly because I was like, hey, this is kind of a nerd.

Pete: I also really liked the pirates
stuff. That was really cool.

Justin: Yeah, all the additional back
matters. Also, the first time in a comic I’d encountered that when I was like,
oh look at all this text. It’s really deepening the story.

Alex: Yeah. You read the Black
Freighter stuff, Pete?

Pete: Some of it.

Alex: Okay. Okay. We’ll get into
that. We’ll see what happens.

Justin: It could get interesting.

that’s everyone’s favorite part.

Alex: Let’s talk about Damon
Lindelof. He has worked on a bunch of shows, most notably Lost and The
Leftovers, as you guys know very well, Justin and Pete, Lost is my favorite TV
show of all time.

Pete: Yup.

Justin: Even the end?

Alex: Even the end-

Justin: Oddly.

Alex: … which I love.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Leftovers is great.

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Did not love the first season
of that, but it eventually figured itself out in season two.

Justin: See, I even like the first season
of Leftovers.

Alex: Really?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Do you know what held me back
about that is I read the book and I loved the book and it’s so different than
the book. It tweaked it in weird ways that I wasn’t crazy about where I felt
like-

Justin: See, I didn’t read the book.

Alex: Yeah. It felt like it was
missing the point that was made in the book. The book is very satirical. It was
very funny. The first season of Leftovers was extremely serious to a fault.

Justin: Yes it was.

Alex: And then it figured itself out.
Like it figured out a more humanity in those last two seasons of Leftovers.
Glorious. What do you guys think about Damon Lindelof shows? Pete?

Pete: Super cool guy.

Alex: Have you seen either of them?

Pete: No.

Alex: What? [crosstalk 00:08:48] You
didn’t even get to see Lost?

Pete: Nope.

Alex: What?

Justin: I was obsessed with Lost. I feel
like, and this is a good thing, I think.

Pete: Brian K. Vaughan, right? Also
worked-

Justin: He worked on that.

Alex: Yes he did.

Justin: I feel like the Lost was sort of
like, I think he’s a great teller of stories, maker of television. Lost felt
like sort of a teenage.

Alex: It’s called a tele-maker.

Justin: Yeah, that’s what it is,
telemarketer. Lost felt like a sort of a teenager. The teenage show where he
was like-

Pete: Lot of angst?

Justin: Well it’s like, it’s a little bit
herky-jerky. It’s those scripts they would write the in the the action lines it
would be like, and then he pulls out a mother fucking diamond and they like all
the in the … Oh the motherfucking hatch finally fucking opened and-

Pete: Lot of swearing.

Justin: … that’s not how most people
write scripts.

Pete: That’s how I write scripts.

Justin: I know, which is-

Alex: You’re talking about the actual
scripts?

Justin: The actual real script.

Alex: Okay.

Justin: Yeah. Had all this crazy language
in the action lines and stuff.

Alex: Nice.

Justin: So it felt like a little bit all
over the place, not really knowing what it was the whole time. And that’s why I
think the ending-

Alex: Was so perfect.

Justin: Didn’t stick the landing for most
people.

Alex: Oh, okay.

Justin: And got a little wonky where it
sorta like, oh, I’m ready, I’m an adult. And it’s like, no, you’re not. You’re
a weirdly ended teenager. While Leftovers definitely felt like, oh, this is
mature, it’s grown up. This feels like maybe it’s an even more experienced-wise
understanding of television and how to tell these stories and with this great
material of Watchmen to use as fodder.

Alex: Interesting. Yeah.

Justin: That’s my theory.

Alex: Okay. All right.

Pete: So you’re saying though that
they didn’t keep all that cool stuff in the script and put it in the show?

Justin: No, that was literally describing
what visually you’re seeing when you’re reading the script.

Alex: So I will say to your point-

Pete: To you motherfucking point.

Alex: To your mother fucking point,
Damon Lindelof put out this bonkers note on Instagram back when they announced
Watchmen, where he was explaining himself and he was talking about how it was
so formative for him as a read. It was something that connected to him, to his
father.

Justin: Oh, wow.

Alex: He felt like it never should be
adapted. They should never do that. That’s not something they should make into
a TV show. But then the more he started to think about it, the more he was
like, I’m so scared of this. I just got to try it, even if I’m going to
completely fuck it up.

Justin: Right.

Alex: And everything that I’ve heard
about it from the casting to what they’ve done behind the scenes with the
writing and directing staff, they’ve been so careful and cognizant of what
Watchmen means while still knowing … It is 2019 we’re doing this TV show in
2019, what does it mean that we are doing it now? And that comes down to one of
the things that I think is frankly excellent.

Alex: And this is why I think it’s
interesting and it’s going to be interesting for you to watch, given that Pete,
your Rorschach is your favorite character is Damon Lindelof at the Television
Critics Association tour, which is something that happens twice a year out in
California. I gave an interview and he talked about … there is a gang of
Rorschachs in here and he was like, oh yeah-

Justin: Nice.

Alex: … they’re the alt-right. Like
straight up.

Justin: What? Rorschach wasn’t-

Alex: He didn’t bounce around it and
he was like, they’re a metaphor for the alt-right. It was like, no, no, they’re
an alt-right.

Justin: Well, I mean we’re going to get
into this in our next couple of podcasts, but rereading the first issue, I was
like, oh yeah.

Alex: Yeah.

Justin: Rorschach’s dialogue, his
monologuing is alt-right shit.

Pete: What?

Alex: You know when I think about it,
this is my guess about it, is it’s a lot of people taking his writings and
using it the wrong way.

Justin: Right.

Pete: Cause he wasn’t … He’s never-

Justin: We’ll talk about that-

Alex: We’ll talk about that more when
we get into the issues and everything. Cool. Any other things that you guys want
to say about Watchmen before we wrap up?

Pete: Well then now then I’m Fucking
pissed. I don’t want to see my favorite character turned to some fucking racist
asshole.

Alex: Turned?

Pete: Yeah, turned.

Alex: Interesting.

Justin: Let’s definitely talk about that
in the future. I’m excited. I’m excited to reread Watchmen and re-get into that
whole thing. Even excited to watch the movie.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. So we’re
going to do all of that on individual episodes as they roll out and then of
course once the show starts, we’re really going to get into that as well. So
very excited to see what that’s all about.

Alex: Right now we are getting all
the feeds live for this, but you can subscribe to the RSS at
comicbookclublive.com and we’ll have the feed right there. You’re certainly
probably listening to it right now after listening to this episode and it
should be live on iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, etc, very, very soon.
Couple of other things before we go, you can check us out
patreon.com/comicbookclub if you want to support this podcast and more. Also,
we do a live show every Tuesday night at 8:00 PM at the People’s Improv Theater
Loft in New York. Come on by and we’ll watch you watch the Watchmen.

Alex: Pete, what do you want to plug?

Pete: Friend us on Facebook so you get
to know about the amazing guests in our live show.

Justin: Follow us at Twitter
@comicbooklive.

Alex: Check us out
comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and more, and remember we recorded this
podcast 35 minutes ago.

Justin: Alan just texted me. He’s
definitely going to be here next time.

Check out the website at comicbookclublive.com to find out how to watch the show live! And follow the show on Twitter: @comicbooklive, @azalben, @jtsizzle, and @realpetelepage

And, you can check out a transcript of the show, here:

Alex: What’s up everybody, welcome to The Stack, I’m Alex, the responsible one.

Justin: You don’t need to say those words ever again. Just say Alex. Justin, the other responsible one.

Pete: And I’m Pete the irresponsible one.

Justin: Reckless Pete, they call him.

Alex: Pete get your thumb out of that pie. Pete, come on. Pete, what are you doing?

Justin: Yeah. Get your thumb out, and put you body inside the chair-

Pete: What?

Justin: And start talking comics.

Pete: [crosstalk 00:00:36].

Alex: I don’t know what we are talking about. We are talking about comics that have come out today, Wednesday in comic book shops. We are going to review a bunch of them. Couple of notes here right at the top, as usual. We’ll stop doing these notes at the top, eventually.

Justin: Yeah. Let’s stop with the notes at the top.

Alex: Stop? No. I got to give you guys a couple of notes. You guys in the listening audience. All right. First of all, perk up. Second of all pull up your pants.

Justin: Wow.

Pete: Don’t you dare talk about our audience like that.

Alex: Third of all get a job, you guys.

Pete: What the fuck man?

Alex: You’re sitting down listening to a podcast all day. What do you do with your lives?

Pete: Hey, some people are out on a run right now listening to our podcast.

Alex: Well, that’s true.

Justin: Out on the run.

Pete: Out on a run.

Justin: The cops are out on a run.

Pete: Not the run.

Alex: Yeah. If you’re on the run from the cops listening to our podcast-

Justin: Way to be living your own life.

Pete: Alex, that’s a confident criminal. It’s like, “I want to listen to this comic book podcast and not plan my full escape.”

Alex: So a couple of things that we should let you guys know. There is a transcript version of the podcast that rolls out either simultaneously with the podcast or soon after if you prefer to read your podcasts or if you are hearing impaired in any way. Also we should mention that there is a separate Stack podcast for this that you can just subscribe to. It rolls out in the regular comic book club live feed with our live show. But if you want to subscribe separately, if you want to rate it separately, you certainly can there.

Alex: We’re going to get through a couple of your user comments at the end of the show. If you guys do you want to leave us a comment in iTunes, on either feed, we’ll read it here on the show and respond to you guys right there. We love to hear from you guys.

Justin: We do.

Pete: We do.

Alex: We love it.

Justin: In person, especially when we’re at our homes or on a vacation, if you can find us.

Pete: Why do you inviting people to do right now?

Justin: I want people to come visit us. Pete, you’re going on a trip next weekend. I think people should come find you.

Alex: Yeah. Where are you going Pete? Let them know where they can find you.

Pete: I’m going to be in Philly.

Justin: All right. That’s it. The target’s in Philly. See if he could track him down.

Alex: Follow the trail of broken cookies and you’ll find Pete.

Justin: Yes. Everyone knows about Pete’s cookie addiction now.

Alex: Yes.

Justin: He’s a cookie crook.

Alex: Well something is killing Pete. But also from BOOM! Studios, something is killing the children. Number one came out today. This is a big advanced hit. A lot of people are predicting this might be the next big comic book, the next big breakout comic book.

Justin: Wow.

Alex: It’s by James Tynion IV who wrote some of our favorite series here on the show. But this is an original horror concept. Curious to hear what you guys think about it. Do you think it’s worth the hype? Do you think it’s beyond the hype? What’s your take?

Justin: Well, I think it’s-

Alex: Only comments on the hype. Not the actual look at it.

Justin: Yeah. Never, that’s it. We don’t review comics anymore. We review hype. Hype is good. Good last page review on the hype.

Pete: I think it’s a very solid book. I didn’t know about any of this hype stuff, but I mean-

Justin: One of our guests talked about it on literally the last live show.

Pete: Cool.

Justin: And he said it was really hyped.

Pete: Well, I’m happy for the [crosstalk 00:03:27]. He’s a great writer, but I just read it as a really solid book. They’re just making the statement that monsters are real, which is bold. It’s a bold statement.

Justin: That’s most of comics, I believe.

Pete: Yeah. You also know it’s not a documentary, right?

Alex: What?

Pete: The book.

Alex: It’s not.

Pete: No.

Alex: It’s not all true.

Pete: Some of it’s true. There are people, those do exist.

Alex: All right.

Justin: Yeah. Cities, children. I like this a lot. I don’t know about leading up to the hype. It’s hard to figure that out after the first issue. This is really just the very beginning. You’re just assembling the characters in this town.

Pete: Well, some issues you can tell like Murder Falcon, first issue, you know it was going to be maybe one of the best comics of all time.

Justin: Sure. But I do love all the ingredients that are here. It’s horrifying. The characters are super interesting and different. And the blonde girl that we see on the flip phone she’s very interesting.

Alex: I would say that if anything is probably the thing that backs up the hype because the art in this book is fabulous across the board. The character designs are great. The eventual monster reveals are great as well, but it really is this main character who… To get into spoilers here, there’s a kid at a sleepover. He’s telling a story about a scary monster he saw, then we flip forward and something, for the title has been killing all the children in the town. We don’t know what. We eventually find out what that is through this woman that it’s pretty easy to figure out. She is a traveling Monster Hunter. All of the buffy the vampire slayer other characters like that.

Pete: How did you know that about her? Because of-

Alex: She stumbles out of the woods with two blades, sees a girl in a wagon with no arms, who’s like, “Did you take care of it?” She’s like, “Sure. Okay, I’ll go to this next town. I’m on my way.”

Alex: So all of that, I think was like pretty clear setup, right?

Justin: Yeah. 100%.

Pete: I thought it was a chip on the side of her head that made you think that.

Alex: No. That’s another mystery that we have to unfold as we go further into the series.

Justin: I’m intrigued by the idea that she’s talking to someone else or a larger organization. That to me, feels like sort of a non horror story element being introduced here, which I thought was a nice little teaser or twist.

Alex: It feels like a cross between buffy and Attack on Titan to me at this point that we’re very early going.

Justin: Yeah.

Pete: It’s also-

Justin: But the point that I want to make is, I think the design of that main character in particular, is the thing that’s going to make this book go long term. And I know that’s a weird thing to focus on, but it is something like that that it feels like a fresh new character. It feels like a fresh new look. It’s very iconic instantly and I think that’s cool to see.

Pete: But it’s also kind of sad because that girl definitely doesn’t have a childhood. She’s working a full time job killing monsters.

Alex: Yeah. Something is killing the children but something killed your childhood.

Justin: Oh, wow. That’s the real-

Pete: Jobs, don’t get them guys.

Justin: Jobs, the real horror.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: The real monster here is a job.

Alex: Is your argument that if you take a job, you don’t have a childhood? When did you start working?

Pete: I started working very early.

Justin: First job?

Pete: First job was paper role.

Justin: Wow.

Pete: Oh, yeah.

Justin: What a male paper girl.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: What about you?

Alex: My first job?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Working at the computer lab at the library.

Justin: Wow. Is there anything possibly that could be more on brand that you saying that? Where you were changing vacuum tubes back in the first fucking computer?

Alex: Yeah. We didn’t actually, even have a library. It was just a computer the size of a library.

Justin: Wow. That’s great.

Alex: You were able to take out one page of a book.

Pete: Your first job working at a bar?

Justin: Burger King drivethru, baby.

Pete: Oh, yeah, that’s right. We talked about this.

Justin: I ran that whole shit is the original podcast as I was saying. I did the first podcast.

Pete: [crosstalk 00:07:15] saying that’s not true.

Justin: What’s up everybody welcome to the Stack of burgers and vegetables which you’re just about to order.

Pete: [crosstalk 00:07:22].

Justin: I was hitting that [crosstalk 00:07:28] as a child. That’s why often don’t make any sense.

Alex: This book is very good. Definitely, recommend picking it up. Regardless of the hype or not, don’t expect the second coming of God for this book necessarily, but I do think it’s very exciting. The art as we said is gorgeous. And I’m really looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Alex: All right, next one to talk about from beginnings to endings, image, comic books, Wicked + Divine. Number 45 is the last issue of the series. This is bringing everything that Kieron Gillen and J. McKelvie have put together over the past couple of years. Mild spoiler here, but after Laura was thrown in jail for life, the last issue, she does in fact get out. We jumped ahead about I believe, 55 years, something like that.

Justin: Yeah. It’s 2055, I believe.

Alex: Oh, it’s 2055. Right. And we find out what’s happened to our characters and find out kind of how they all end. How did you feel about this last issue?

Justin: This was interesting. I mean, I’ve read this entire series. And I was surprised that it wasn’t Laura’s giving her eulogy. I thought Laura was going to be the character that died over the course of the last issue. And then it made sense for the very final moment, which I really liked. But it would really this felt more like sort of an epilogue than almost any other last issue of a comic I’ve ever read. It truly is just the characters getting back together. Being like, “You cool? You cool?” “I’m pretty cool. Bye.”

Alex: Well, we talked about that with the last issue, right?

Justin: Yes. 100%.

Alex: The way that issue 44 ended was a definitive ending to the series. The whole conflict of the series has been that they have two years to live, they become gods, and then they die. That was what they thought. They found out the truth was very different than they thought it was. They fought against it. And ultimately, the last lot of the last issue was, like I said, Laura being sentenced to life as she smiles, because she’s gotten to live. She’s gotten to live out of the rest of her life as a human being, as the rest of them have.

Alex: So we speculated this last issue would be just that final moment and that’s exactly what it was. Pete, how did you feel about it?

Pete: I thought it was good. I really liked what they did with the funeral and kind of the way they really conveyed that somber tone and really kind of like the comic felt sad, waited powerful. And you kind of felt that in the funeral, which I think is really impressive to do in a comic format. Yeah, I mean, I think it was a very creative, very interesting book and it ended in a nice way.

Alex: Cool. All right.

Justin: I like the musical flourishes in here as well. She’s always been something in Kieron Gillen’s work and it was nice. I thought there’d be one other big move in this, last issue. It definitely felt like just pretty chill.

Alex: Yeah. I think though he didn’t want to… they didn’t want to set it up as like this question mark of, “But will the cycle continue? Who knows?”

Justin: I totally get that, because I think the point was, no, it’s not.

Alex: Right. That’s done is done.

Justin: That’s why the story was special.

Alex: Yeah. There you go. All right. The next thing to talk about a long awaited issue from DC Comics. It’s been a while since this one last came out Doomsday Clock, number 11 from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.

Alex: This is the second to last issue of the series. So it’s all starting to come together here. What did you guys think about this? Pete, how did you feel about this?

Pete: I thought this was a great issue. And to me, when you get these two worlds coming together the way this kind of issue built to something-

Alex: A big roll for both the Watchmen and the DC Universe, right?

Pete: Right. Yeah. I really loved the kind of last panel. I thought that was cool because those two characters coming together that’s-

Alex: Superman and Dr. Manhattan.

Pete: Yeah. I didn’t want to spoil it, but since you’re going to be a dick all right.

Alex: Now, we knew that was going to happen.

Justin: Literally, they’ve talked about that the entire time. It’s these two guys-

Pete: Yeah. Well, we finally get it, and it’s great. And I can’t wait for the next issue because, that to me, is those two people coming face to face and kind of dealing with the world and that kind of stuff. I think it’s very exciting.

Justin: My analogy is, it’s like when the final fireworks go off, if like say the 4th of July, when you shoot fireworks, and it’s like this stuff, the finale and it’s going and going, you’re like, “Well, when is this going to stop?” And you stop paying attention because you’re like, “Wait, what’s happening? Is it over? Oh, it’s not over yet. Oh, now it’s over. No, it’s not. There’s more.” And then it’s just like when we can’t pick anything out anymore.

Justin: And that’s what this feels like. And especially, we’re doing a-

Pete: That’s a weird, stressful way to look at fireworks.

Justin: Little bit like… When you’re watching fireworks, they’re sort of like, should we applaud now? And this feels like that thing of the start and stop. The fact that the issues have taken so long to come out, I think weighs into that a little bit. Especially, since we’re rereading Watchmen for our Watchmen watch podcast, which we’re doing.

Pete: Nice plug, bro.

Justin: Nice plug.

Pete: Subtle.

Justin: That comic is so perfect. And this feels like you’re painting an extra smile on the Mona Lisa.

Pete: Oh, that’s fucking.

Justin: On the forehead.

Alex: I can agree with you about the fireworks thing, in particular.

Pete: I disagree.

Alex: Because this comics so far, one of the things we talked about every issue is, it’s very much taking it’s time. It’s very much… It hasn’t been clear what the point is, what the plot is exactly, what’s happening here. And we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting. And then it all got stuffed into this issue. And that is why it felt quick to me.

Alex: To your point, this might read very differently as a series when you read it in trade, potentially. But right now, with one issue to go, I’m still not quite sure what the idea is. I’m not quite sure what the move is. Is this doing something to the DC Universe? Is that saying something about the world? Is this moving the Legion of Super-Heroes forward? Is it fixing time in the DC Universe? Is it doing all of those things? We don’t know. We don’t have any idea.

Justin: Yeah. And it feels like it could have been something much shorter. And sort of getting to this final moment of this issue and into the next issue or something that was much longer that really explored different arcs featuring these characters and the different patches of the Watchmen Universe would touch the DC Universe. I guess we’ve done that with the other Watchmen before Watchmen series, but focusing on that, and then just inserting the other DC characters would be cool.

Alex: Yeah. I mean to this point, I think the essential idea which Geoff Johns talked about beforehand is he doesn’t want to see Dr. Manhattan and Superman wreck the world together and I get into big fight. I’m curious to see them have some sort of a conversation. It’s not going to happen. I’m curious to see them have some sort of conversation. I was curious to see them talk. But there’s been too much build up for it at this point. Right.

Justin: Right. Yeah. What are they going to say?

Pete: I also like how Dr. Manhattan seems nervous about it.

Justin: Yeah. He’s a nervous dude.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, it’s just going to be interesting.

Justin: He and Dr. Manhattan. That’s how he sounds.

Pete: It’s just going to be interesting to see what Superman’s going to be… what Superman is-

Justin: [crosstalk 00:14:50] a movie of Manhattan?

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: That’s by Dr. Manhattan. Cool.

Pete: It will be interesting to see what Superman’s going to say. He’s going to… First thing he’s going to say is like, “Yo, cover your junk. What’s up?”

Justin: You need to borrow my tiny red underwear?

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: Maybe it’s going to just be like a fun-

Pete: Maybe, “Oh shit. Could you imagine if it turns out the reason that Superman is wearing his underwear outside of his pants this entire time is so he can give them to Dr. Manhattan.”

Alex: To cover his blue [crosstalk 00:15:16].

Justin: Wow, that’d be a fun to reveal.

Pete: That would be-

Justin: I’ll tell you what makes a lot of sense.

Pete: Yeah. Because then they both be just staying there with blue legs.

Justin: You heard it here first. The final issue of Doomsday Clock, spoiled. A couple of blue legged dudes hang out.

Alex: Because he comes back to life and he’s like, “Look at these bunch of blue legs.” Looks directly at the camera, winks.

Alex: Listen, it is not too old to admit that we started doing this podcast during the Vaudeville, all right? It’s that it’s just not. It’s not. I’m not old.

Pete: I would like to go on record to say, I disagree with you guys only in your-

Alex: About slight whistles or what in particular?

Pete: About fireworks.

Alex: Okay.

Pete: How you watch fireworks and want it to end so quickly once again.

Justin: I’m saying I want it to end, it just-

Pete: Oh, God, when’s this going to end? Is this the ending? Is this the ending?

Justin: No. It’s more the finale is like, there’s too much going on.

Pete: You can always tell when the end of the firework show is up.

Justin: [crosstalk 00:16:24].

Pete: I feel like the end of the firework show, the thing that’s annoying to me is there like, “Oh here’s a firework. Here’s a firework. Oh, here’s two fireworks. Oh, this one looks like a heart. This is a star.” And they get to the end like, “Shit. Let the ball go.” And it’s just like, “[inaudible 00:16:40].”

Justin: That’s what I’m saying.

Pete: No. That’s great. We mean too much.

Alex: Calm down.

Pete: What?

Alex: There’s no art to it.

Pete: That’s all [inaudible 00:16:46].

Justin: I like the… One minute ago-

Pete: You’re all going off and it’s beautiful and amazing.

Justin: One minute ago, you were like, “I’m not old.” And you were like, “Fireworks are too wizzy baby for me.” It’s just too much going on.

Alex: Too wizzy baby.

Pete: Slow it down. I’d rather just see a leaf fall from a tree. It is the season.

Alex: I go to these firework shows and I cannot follow the plot for the life of [inaudible 00:17:11].

Justin: The original fireworks was a flag, the good all the United States flag.

Alex: What happened to that, Pete?

Justin: Yeah, Pete.

Pete: I’ll tell you what, someone’s going to review this on iTunes and is just going to say you guys are too old to one star.

Justin: Or five stars.

Alex: Oh no, who said it?

Pete: Yeah. Five stars. I also have old five stars.

Alex: All right. Let’s move on to something that will not be quite as contentious House of X, number four from Marvel Comics.

Justin: Oh my God.

Alex: Now, Pete and I had… You were not here for this.

Justin: That’s true.

Alex: Pete and I had quite a sit down last week. We talked about House of X. We talked about Powers X or whatever. I still don’t want to call it that. And I think we came to an understanding, right?

Pete: Sure.

Alex: That you understand now why you’re frustrated about it. You understand why we’re liking it. You don’t have to like it and nobody expects you to like it. But we’re all going to talk very calmly about it.

Justin: Yeah, nice.

Pete: That’s all going out the window with this issue.

Justin: Plus, I grounded up a bunch of pills in Pete’s subway [inaudible 00:18:10] prior to that. So let’s hope that it’s taking effect.

Pete: Yeah. My subway was actually crunchy there.

Justin: That’s right. That’s for pills.

Alex: So one thing I you got to like about this book, Pete, I know how much you like it when things pick up immediately after the last issue. And this is the first issue of House of X, Powers of X. That picked up immediately after the last issue-

Justin: How about that?

Alex: With the X-Men team leading an assault on the Mother Mold. The Mother Mold is going to give birth to a bunch of Master Molds, that is going to lead directly to the creation of Nimrod and the destruction of the entire world. They’re trying to stop that before it happens. And when we last left them, they all esploded.

Pete: Esploded?

Alex: Esplode.

Pete: That’s the Spanish for explode?

Alex: Nah. It’s kind of like internet for explode.

Justin: No. That’s the language, the crack oh language.

Alex: Yeah. I speak it because my best friend decipher.

Justin: Yeah. You guys used to have fun together.

Alex: So that’s where we pick up. And this issue, again, if you could get past your feelings, Pete, while I was reading this I kept thinking, “This is a great issue repeat because this is nonstop action, the entire time.”

Justin: Great action.

Alex: And barely interrupted by word pages, but mostly left for the end.

Justin: It’s all picture page.

Alex: I thought, once again-

Pete: It started with some word pages.

Alex: Awesome issue.

Justin: Such a good issue. Come on, Pete, Cyclops says that Wolverine is the bravest man he’s ever known. It’s calling you a brave man.

Pete: Do you know what’s great? Is the fact that Cyclops one of the, “Great leaders of the X-Men,” if you can hear my quotation marks.

Justin: I can’t hear.

Pete: He’s such a great leader. He just watches as Wolverine dies. What a great leader that is. Thanks for [crosstalk 00:19:45].

Alex: Over the history of our podcast, Pete, have been very upset about how Wolverine died. Wait was it Wolverine? No, is the Punisher died. Nevermind, my point is not good.

Justin: He doesn’t like it when Wolverine dies either.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: So your point stands.

Alex: Sure. Okay.

Justin: Cyclops is not leading this mission, [inaudible 00:20:02] was.

Alex: Okay. Wait, wait. Now, I figured it out. What’s worse, Pete, the Punisher being killed by Darkin or Wolverine being killed by the sun. Because I think Wolverine getting killed by the sun is pretty cool.

Justin: Cool way to go out.

Alex: That’s pretty cool.

Justin: I plan on going out that way.

Alex: If I was going to kill Wolverine is-

Justin: No, just skin cancer. But still-

Pete: It got to be twice.

Justin: Yeah. Exactly. Still sun got me just like Wolverine.

Alex: By the way, I want to say very cool, very odd thing to say, Justin.

Justin: I had a melanoma when I was 19, so it’s very fresh to have light skin cancer.

Pete: Oh, light skin.

Justin: Did I bring down the room?

Alex: Just a little bit.

Pete: Just a little light skin cancer.

Justin: I’m fine.

Pete: You got skin cancer. Take it easy, it’s light.

Justin: This is a little kiss. This issue is so good.

Pete: Okay. Well, before you guys starts sucking this freaking Comic off with all the love, can we talk about-

Justin: Too late, Pete.

Pete: All right, first off-

Alex: We’re already light.

Pete: We have a comic-

Alex: Up to halfway the internal cheeks.

Pete: Were a bunch of people died, but we don’t know why. We don’t know what they were fighting for.

Alex: Wait. What?

Pete: We don’t know what time period This was taking place.

Alex: No. We know all of this stuff.

Justin: Yeah. This is present day. This is House of X, which is taking place in quote unquote present day. We know why the Master Mold is going to make all these Nimrod. Basically, we’re getting to Nimrod here.

Pete: Nimrod, some guy in a helmet, looks like a lollipop who goes by professor told them, “Hey, listen [crosstalk 00:21:33].”

Alex: Are you doing a bed right now?

Justin: Show me the diploma.

Pete: What? What diploma? Oh.

Justin: Because he’s a professor.

Alex: Yeah. Okay. Listen, I know maybe you’re probably doing a bit right now. But let’s move past the bed and instead talk about the comic book. Like we discussed on the last show when we were like, let’s be serious about this a little bit.

Justin: My God, she’s bringing an anger management coach for you too.

Pete: Yeah. I’m working on it.

Justin: This book is so good. I love the way that we start with-

Pete: No, no. Explained to me… Sure. Okay.

Justin: I’m doing it right now. We get the first page, granted it’s words, but it really sets the tone of these X-Men have been through hell constantly.

Pete: We know that.

Justin: I know. But it was great to read this information be like… To see it all sort of calculated on paper, I thought was really cool. And really set a dark tone right at the top of this.

Alex: So I will mention, for those of you who didn’t read the issue, it opens with laying out the various ways that the mutant race has been down over and over again. It talks about Genoshan what the cost was there. It talks about the decimation that was caused by Wanda’s no more mutants and what they did there, as well as the smaller decimations, they’ve gotten through over and over until there are, what is it? 198 mutants, something like that.

Justin: Yeah. That decimation was an event from years ago, and just seeing it here was like, “Oh, God, right. That is horrible.”

Alex: And I got to tell you, I mean, one of the things that’s been talked about a lot with this run that Jonathan Hickman has been doing on the X-Men is how a lot of minority groups can read themselves of things. I will say as a Jew reading this, this was a very hard page to read. I mean, the very clear thing that they did with Genoshan is they killed 16 million mutants, which is exactly the number of Jews that were killed in the Holocaust. So that’s what they’re calling back there. But reading that it, it hits you in the gut very hard when you’re reading that sort of thing.

Alex: And to your point on the comic book super-hero, it sets the stakes of what they’re doing very well, because they are down to 198 mutants at this point. And if they lose this, they lose everything.

Justin: It’s an existential crisis for them which we’re used to the X-Men facing, but the fact that we start seeing the members die right out the gate, Archangel and Husk are dead and I was like, “I like Husk.” And we didn’t even see… She dies off panel.

Justin: And the one thing that Jonathan Hickman does here that I thought was really cool is we get to see the enemy side as if their protagonists, which is very rare. I feel like in both the X-Men comics, comics in general, where the villain is true, you’re with them and they’re fighting for their lives as well, that I thought really made it even harder to read from an emotional stuff.

Alex: Yeah. It’s a really tough issue, particularly, because also from a comic reader perspective. So we talked about this but most of them died, this issue. Cyclops dies. Wolverine dies. Husk and Archangel dies. I don’t remember who else.

Pete: Jean.

Alex: What?

Pete: Jean Gray.

Justin: Jean dies at the end. I mean, Monet’s sort of winning with her fight. Also Monet, what a great character. So cool to see her.

Alex: Oh, okay.This is an alternate universe, not really happening or something like that, but you still have that emotional heft of what’s been going on and the ultimate question of, “Wait, if these characters are dying here, and this is not,” quote unquote, God, if you could hear my quote speed, “Our universe then what you universe is this?”

Alex: So what I loved about this issue, like a lot of this issues in the run is, it had the emotional heft. It has the puzzle of everything that is going on, but it also wraps in these characters in this big action in this issue at the same time. And just to wrap it back to what I was saying about the Jewish stuff, I mean, no more. So at the end, Wanda back in the decimation said, “No more mutants,” right?

Alex: At the end, Professor Xavier, I think, or lollipop head or whatever you want to call him, seems to be saying, “No more,” repeating that as part of the no more mutants. He’s taking back that phrase. He’s appropriating it for the mutants. And then seeing it shatter apart and seeing him and say, “No more, no more, no more,” when they’ve lost almost everything reminded me a lot of the phrase that comes out of the Holocaust, which is, “Never again.”

Alex: And as Jews, again, you say over and over again. Never again. Never again. Never again. Not because it will never happen again. But because you know it may and you need to remember that it never should happen again.

Alex: So, I again, I’m sure other minority groups probably read a lot of different things in this issue, in this run. But to me, I was able to read that Jewish experience very heavily in this issue.

Justin: Yeah. Couple other moments that I just thought were really great, the conversation that Nightcrawler and Wolverine had, right before he knows he sacrificing himself. Just able to wrap in all of the information we know about these characters that Nightcrawler is deeply religious, and Wolverine’s like, “Hey, is there an afterlife?” He knows he’s sacrificing himself. He’s still hard as nails, but he still has the human core.

Justin: This is just a five panel series, and we just get so much out of it. Jonathan Hickman has digested every character in the X-Men universe, has boiled them down to their most important qualities and just lays it out here.

Pete: But we still don’t know what’s going on.

Justin: We will, though. You have to just-

Pete: That’s what’s hard for me is people are dying and I don’t if it’s for a good reason or not, and that is bothersome.

Justin: It is.

Alex: The reason is that the entire mutant race will be destroyed if they don’t win. That’s the reason.

Pete: Well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s one of those things where it’s, this place that keep going to-

Alex: Krakoa?

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: I think the no more means we’re going to get another timeline for Moira, and that’s going to be the timeline that we follow forward. This is all setting the stage. So it’s not meant to be a true like, everyone knows what’s going on narrative. It’s sort of giving you all these details that the actual run on the title, which starts in October is going to be playing out. This is sort of like the overture.

Alex: I mean, yeah, I think that’s what we talked about on the last podcast a little bit with this issue. I can’t remember. Maybe it was the one where you weren’t here, but I’m not sure. Personally, I was getting pretty sure with the last issue and even more sure with this issue that, to your point, we’ve learned about, what, 10 lifetimes from Moira. And this is sensibly the one where she’s like, “I tried something different. I brought everybody together to stop this thing.” I think she’s still going to fail.

Justin: Yeah. I mean, it seems like they failed pretty hard right here.

Alex: They failed pretty hard here. And then I think we’re going to find out that, to your point, it’s going to reset. They’re going to go back and Moira’s going to be like, “I failed. Every single way, I failed. There’s no way of stopping this thing.” And that’s what we follow is now we know the stakes, now we know the cost of what’s going to happen and what the X-Men are coming up against.

Pete: But they didn’t go. They got that last one off. So the head is…

Justin: I don’t know. It came online. So it makes me feel like they failed, to Alex’s point. It did fall into the sun. But I think we have two more issues of this series to go before the full launch. So I think we’re going to get the play out of that. We’re going to see other bad things happen. And we’ve never really seen an X-Men team deal with a loss this bad, all the core, not all of them, but most of the core mutants that we followed for the last 70 years or whatever, 60 years. We’re seeing the devastate… We will see the devastation of what happens after that. Just exciting.

Alex: And the other thing that we’ve been talking about all along is that each of these issues deals with a different part of X-Men history. And here we are dealing with those decimation things. We’re dealing with Genoshan, which we touched on a little bit before, and that’s very cool.

Alex: To your point, Justin, Hickman has done his research. He’s clearly dealt himself in the entirety of X-Men history. It does make me wonder if Ed Piskor’s X-Men grand design was in a weird way an overcharged to this.

Justin: Oh, that’s cool.

Alex: That it was setting the stage, that it was synthesizing everything, doing the research together. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I don’t think so.

Justin: Plus, Pete, maybe there’ll be a solar flare next issue and Wolverine will just pop out of and be like, “I beat the sun too, bitch.”

Alex: What do you think? Would you like that?

Pete: No. I just think it’s just tough when people die, you’re not sure-

Alex: No. Wolverine is definitely dead forever, but the rest of them I’m not sure about. What do you think about that, Pete?

Alex: No. That was off screen. There’s just a spray of blood. What probably happened was, the person shot him. You saw his visor come off. So shot him his visor is like, “Phew.” And the bullet bounced off and back into the bad lady and Cyclops is like, “Now I can see, and I’m a cool dude. I’m the coolest dude because Wolverine died in the sun.”

Justin: Yeah. No more competition for [crosstalk 00:30:45].

Pete: It was a real competition between Wolverine and Cyclops for who was the coolest.

Alex: I might be getting this wrong, but I think one of the titles that they’re launching in October is Cyclops the cool dude.

Justin: Wolverine sucks, issue number one is going to be a real big seller. Go home Canadian man, is going to be one.

Pete: That’s very offensive.

Justin: No. It’s about Wolverine.

Alex: All right. Let’s move on to something else from Image Comics, Pretty Deadly: The rat, number one. This is bringing back Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios series in a new time era. We get to see them in sort of, I think, it’s 1920s. Is it ’20s Hollywood?

Justin: Yes. There’s some old Hollywood stuff.

Alex: Whatever it is, it’s old timey Hollywood. We get to investigate a new supernatural mystery type thing here.

Pete: It’s Probably Vaudeville times, right in your wheelhouse.

Alex: All right, buddy. Listen, I had a nice time in vaudeville. And then the time was over. And I retired the Florida.

Justin: You invented pie in the face, right? [crosstalk 00:31:57] pie. Most people ate pies before. He was like, “No.”

Alex: I was trying to eat a pie but I didn’t know how to do it. I mean, that’s funny.

Justin: That’s funny.

Alex: This series is gorgeous, first of all. I know Kelly Sue is a fantastic writer but Emma Rios’s art is so stupendous in every single issue this. I love it. What did you guys think about this issue?

Justin: So poetic both in the writing and the art. The combination which is just such a nice. I love the story within a story of the conjurer man as he’s known in here, finding his niece’s artwork, and we get to actually see it sort of in the full page. Very cool. Very well done. Series is great.

Pete: Yeah. I’m super excited for more.

Alex: Cool. I will say there’s a story told in this issue. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, it’s like tales of beatle the bar, the tale of the three brothers, but feels like it’s own shadow play riff on it and it’s really, really cool.

Justin: This reminds me of like early Hellboy. If you’re looking for a comparison, if you’re not sure if you want to pick this up, it has the same sort of horror vibe, about really just well made fun. There’s a couple humor moments sort of like Hellboy used to have. Good stuff.

Alex: It’s very good. Let’s move on to ComiXology. ComiXology is kicking off their new originals with Break Lands, number one is the first issue out of that. They’re going to be releasing a new comic every week for their ComiXology of limited members is, I believe, what it is. This one is by Justin Jordan, who’s been writing… Well, he’s done a bunch of books. But he’s writing River. Is that the book from Image right now?

Justin: Oh, yes. We’ve checked that out.

Alex: Yeah. So this is entirely separate. It’s about a fantasy land, some violent stuff happens. Pete, how did you feel about this one?

Pete: Oh, I loved it. Art’s really cool. I love the setup of having these huge figures kind of like coming at people. It’s very intense, very scary, but the art, it has a sweetness to it. And really, the main characters there are very interesting, unique and I like the way they all interact. I think it’s a great issue. I’m excited for more and I feel like they did a good job of leaving you hanging and wanting more.

Justin: He’ll have a spine torn out. And that’s what we got here, right?

Pete: Yeah. I mean, there’s nothing like it.

Justin: This reminded me a lot of a show I loved, Avatar: The Last Airbender. It feels like sort of spiritually in the same area and that’s fun.

Alex: Yeah, I really enjoyed this as well. He tends to put his influences right in the back matter and kind of just throws together like, “Yeah. There’s a bunch of things that I want to throw together and see what happens. Will that be fun?” And one of the big things he talks about is he always felt like they were kind of change in terms how they used the force in the Star Wars.

Alex: So he wanted to up that up a bunch, and that’s, definitely, what plays out here mixed with Avatar and Princess Mononoke.

Alex: Oh my God. I thought this was… We were talking about this a little on the Patreon on Slack. People were like, “Oh, it’s probably a lost house of Alpha Flight type thing.” Nope. No, it was totally, “This is where they are now. We’re going to move them forward.”

Alex: And honestly every story I weirdly came to it like, “All right, prove it.” And felt like they’re not going to delve into the emotional journeys of these characters. Just give me a little bit of a lark, but no. They dug in there. Each of the stories is very dark, which is one of the things-

Pete: Yeah. It was weird because they were doing it with light things, like Puck’s been buried, but he is sharing his soul.

Justin: At the beach in fun way, not dead and buried in a grave.

Alex: Yeah. One of the things that I always really liked about Alpha Flight is people forget about it. They look at it as like, “It’s the Avengers, but Canadian. So they’re probably nice or something, the end.” It was always really dark and fucked up. Like all of the stuff with Department H, there’s all these terrible things going on there at the same time. That’s something they work in here.

Alex: Like you said, there’s a great story with Puck and Aurora. That gets it to their characters. The first one with Snowbird and who’s the other character with Snowbird?

Justin: Shaman.

Pete: Shaman.

Alex: Oh, yeah. It’s Shaman. Also it ties it to a bit of Snowbird’s history that I haven’t thought about in decades, probably. I love this.

Justin: I love the way… Yeah, I loved it too, as I said. The way they paint Canada as this really mystical place where a bunch of crazy shit happens, I love that.

Alex: Well, and another thing that I thought was great, that was clearly so purposeful from the Puck story is every single Alpha Flight story or whatever anybody likes in Alpha Flight story. It’s like, “Here we are in snowy wasteland.” And that’s not all Canada is.

Justin: There’re beaches.

Alex: There’s beaches. So they clearly were like, “No, we’re got to set a story at a beach. We’re going to show off part of Canada.”

Justin: We get to see Fat Cobra from Iron Fist fame in here. And the last story I thought was just truly a horror story, a comic book horror story without any go or anything, just an emotional horror story. It was great.

Alex: If you have never read Alpha Flight and you always kind of pushed to the side as Ed and other team, read the first 12 issues by John Byrne, which are phenomenal, and ended one of the most heartbreaking twists I’ve ever read comics. They’re great.

Alex: Moving on to DC Comics Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy], number one, just picking up right after Heroes in Crisis. Poison Ivy died. She came back to life. She’s not quite right. And now Harley and Ivy are on the road to try to figure her stuff out. I thought this was fun Lark. What do you guys think about this book?

Justin: Yeah, fun, first issue. I love these two together. It’s great to see them together without having to deal with a bunch of Batman stuff. Them alone, it’s fun.

Alex: Yeah. And it ties into a little thing that they kind of threw it in the Swamp Thing continuity. I believe in the Justice League Dark Annual, which I thought was very neat and surprising, but made a lot of sense in terms of the villain for the series. Pete, what do you think about this?

Pete: Yeah. I think it’s fun having them team up and be in their own little world. And it’s fun to see Harley care about people. I think sometimes when Harley is drawn or written, she’s crazy or she’s always attached to the Joker. There’s always something with Joker. So it’s nice to see her have her own wants and needs and still be Harley and try to care for her friend which is very sweet.

Pete: But then we kind of get a new villain reveal and kind of Poison Ivy keeps kind of curling up into a ball.

Alex: As you do.

Pete: Yeah.

Alex: When you come back from death, you curl up into the ball a little bit.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: [crosstalk 00:39:43].

Alex: Yeah. I enjoyed this. Are your fans of the character, definitely check that out. Moving on to a super advanced review coming out September 25th from Valiant Comics.

Pete: No spoiler alerts.

Alex: Bloodshot, number one from Hack and Tim Seeley. Hack/Slash, Tim Seeley, Pete, as a resident violence fan, curious to hear what you thought about this.

Justin: That would have been hard to get, because it’s a different word.

Pete: Yep. But-

Alex: Wait. Were you saying Gorey S?

Pete: Yeah. I didn’t want to say it like that.

Alex: It’s always good when you’re making upon to not actually say.

Pete: Exactly. [crosstalk 00:40:25].

Alex: Keep it real [crosstalk 00:40:26].

Justin: It’s the jokes you don’t say that people laugh the hardest.

Pete: Yeah. Exactly. I believe that.

Alex: That’s what I learned in Vaudeville.

Pete: But yeah, I think Tim Seeley does such a great job of writing action, moving things forward in a way that is fun to follow. And yeah, this is really cool. It’s nice to see him have fun with Bloodsport.

Justin: Wow.

Pete: Bloodshot.

Justin: Bloodshot.

Alex: What about Justin and get his opinions on this?

Justin: Great choice.

Alex: Pete, by the way, is slowly sinking down to his chair. I think, was it not going to upset about Wolverine died in the sun that made you curl into a ball?

Pete: Yeah. Exactly.

Alex: Okay.

Justin: Great.

Pete: So I was doing like a Van Damme, Bloodsport.

Alex: That was also-

Justin: You’re not making any sense.

Pete: I think have killed it.

Justin: Maybe, you should send out a lexicon.

Alex: That killing or be killed.

Justin: Yeah. That’s it. Being killed. This is fun. But we talked on a couple shows ago with some Valiant folks who were talking about Bloodshots and how Bloodshots fun again. And this very much feels that way. Bloodshots out there has a very Deadpool vibe to him. He’s indestructible.

Pete: It’s not too annoying. Do you know this feels like the ’90s action movie, Bloodshot?

Justin: Yeah.

Alex: Super fun. What Jeff, I believe it was Jeff Lemire who is writing bloodshot for a good long while. Very interesting, very introspective, super dark. Take on the character, lots of time travel and move into the future and the little dark realms of hell and other things like that.

Alex: But this is basically like, “Nah, man, he’s gotten that Ninites. He could be whoever he wants. Let’s blow shit up.”

Justin: And it is like an image book from the ’90s, a comic book.

Alex: Absolutely. Super fun. And Tim Seeley is exactly the right person to be writing something like that.

Pete: He’s a fun guy.

Alex: It’s great. I had a blast reading this. And I’m very excited to read the next one. Particularly paired with Killers, one Valiant’s other books, which is also just Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter but in the Valiant Universe. This is a fun spate of books.

Justin: And it also has some stakes to the villains like what happens when God hates the earth, or hates humans, basically? That’s a cool sort of underlying base and I think [crosstalk 00:42:47].

Alex: Yeah. I’m sure we’ll get deeper as it goes on. But as a first issue, it’s literally explosive and I enjoyed it. Let’s move on to Legion of Super-Heroes Millennium, number one from DC Comics is the first part of a two issue, what do we call it? Not a maxi series but large format and I don’t know. Something like that.

Justin: A large mini series?

Alex: Prestige. Prestige mini series.

Justin: Okay. Setting the stage for the-

Alex: Now, as you’d expect from a Legion of Super-Heroes mini series this focuses entirely on the character Rose and Thorn. That’s it.

Justin: Yeah. That’s all we need to say.

Alex: That’s it. I don’t know what this is yet. I liked the art in it.

Pete: The art is great.

Alex: There’s a bunch of different artists. It’s exploring different areas of the Legion of Super-Heroes in different parts of the DC future. Like we’ve been talking about with Brian Michael Bendis, just a lot of what he’s done with DC so far is, I don’t know if the phrases exactly, so his oats are flexing his muscles. One of the two.

Justin: I think he’s been shooting a bunch of fireworks in the air at the time. I think that makes sense.

Alex: He’s definitely like, “I want to play with all the things. I want to play with all the toys.” So that’s what he’s doing.

Justin: And this very much feels like he went into the DC basement and filled a box with stuff and he came out and this issue was like, “I’m going to put these five objects on the table, make of them what you will, and I’m going to tell you in the next issue, and then in the eventual Legion of Super-Heroes series, what I’m doing.” And that’s cool. I think that’s a good way to go about it.

Justin: Bendis seems like a good writer to deal with the many voices of the Legion of Super-Heroes. I love the Legion, especially Legionnaires run from back in the ’90s, which we talk about a lot. So I’m down with this. It was nice to see a Legion book start with the full context of the DC future. I feel like most Legion relaunches, they just jump to the future, and we see what’s happening. A Superman family character goes to the future and they move from there. This is walking us through it. And he gave it so much more context, which I thought was cool.

Alex: I agree with you on that. I think it’s going to read very well when you read both of the issues. As a fan of Legion of Super-Heroes as well, reading this issue, when it started off with the idea of Rose and Thorn, she’s a little bit in the future. What we find out in this issue is, she’s essentially a mortal. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know exactly what’s going on.

Alex: So we had that set up and I was like, “Okay, he’s throwing Rose a Thorn. We know he likes her because she’s this little character in the DC universe that he can revitalize, he can have his own take on, he threw her into the Superman run. Okay, we told the first part of the story, here comes the Legion of Super-Heroes.”

Alex: And I sat back and then he gets to the second part is like, “Okay, we’re still focusing on Rose and Thorn. Okay, I get it. We’re building up to the Legion of Super-Heroes, here we go.” And we went through like five parts of that. By the end of their show is like, “We still have are the Legion of Super-Heroes. What are we getting to Legion of Super-Heroes? That’s the title of the book.”

Alex: So again, I understand, intellectually, what you’re saying that we are going to be building to that, and we’re getting there.

Justin: It’s nice to see you get upset about something that you know, intellectually, you shouldn’t be getting upset about.

Alex: Yeah. [inaudible 00:45:46] Legion of Super-Heroes.

Justin: Yeah. Great.

Pete: You guys are really two sides of the same coin.

Alex: Well, which one’s head? Which one’s tails?

Pete: Oddly, you’re both tails. It’s one of those fucked up coins.

Alex: Let’s watch Marvel comic book, Web of Black Widow, number one. This is a much darker take on Black Widow than we’ve seen usually in the comics. What do you guys think about this?

Pete: Well, it’s cool because every once awhile we get to deal with her as a kid or hear stories about her training and all that kind of stuff.

Justin: You get to deal with that a lot, if you’re reading Black Widow comics.

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: So much of those comments are like, “You think her life it’s nice now, look at this shit. She had to do ballet and then kill people.”

Justin: Yeah. I know, but I want to make a little Black Widow of my own.

Pete: Oh, that’s adorable. I wish you luck with that.

Justin: You want to come to the red room? Come to the red room.

Pete: Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes from here. It just kind of has a fucked up start, which is fine. But yeah, Black Widow has great characters, a lot of possibilities.

Justin: The art in this book is great, really fantastic. And I like that it sort of has the artistic style of a Black Widow standalone series sort of set to the side of the Marvel Universe, but this takes place fully in the Marvel Universe. It’d be good to see Iron Man in this and Tony Stark. It’s nice great character choice there. They have a relationship both as co-workers, on the Avengers and also into personally, very fun. They quickly deal with the fact that she’s been recently resurrected. Fine.

Pete: Yeah, just quickly. Yeah. I’ve been resurrected a couple times in our field.

Justin: That’s fine. They set the premise in a nice way, just trying to go back and fix all the bad stuff that she’s done before. I thought this is a good first issue.

Alex: All right. Last one talk about from Image Comic books Battlepug, number one. The enormous pug and his warrior is back. This is super fun. I really enjoyed this a lot.

Pete: I knew you would.

Justin: Yeah?

Alex: Yeah. You did.

Pete: Yeah. He loves this shit.

Justin: He loves to pets.

Alex: I do love pets.

Justin: Yeah. You love cute-

Alex: Well, Battlepug is fun. Did you guys read the other Battlepug stuff?

Justin: Yes.

Alex: Well, that’s definitely a yes.

Pete: Not not a yes.

Justin: That’s a no.

Alex: Battlepug, this is very violent. It’s a big dog. You like that stuff as well.

Pete: No. This is great.

Justin: It’s fun irreverent till topical. There’s some references to what I think is a political figure.

Alex: Oh, you like topical. Yes. Wait, which one? Santa Claus?

Justin: Is it Justin Trudeau from Canada?

Alex: No, I think it’s Santa Claus.

Justin: Oh, that’s it.

Alex: Very controversial.

Justin: This is a funny book because it starts like it could just be sort of a fun take in this world of Battlepug, and it’s like, “Oh, no, we’re going to comment.” It’s almost like Mad Magazine by the end, where it’s the war on Christmas, Donald Trump is the bad guy. There’s a Vladimir Putin turns into a bear when he gets his hands cut off.

Alex: Yeah. I think Mad Magazine is a very good touchstone for it. It definitely feels like it’s not quite as satirical as grew, even or anything like that. But it’s definitely going for that bent. It’s funny. It’s fun. It’s silly, but it’s sort of having actual fantasy story.

Pete: And then you get John Pugs. So everybody [inaudible 00:49:11].

Alex: John Pugs, everybody loves a big pug.

Justin: Yeah. I live with pugs.

Alex: Do you?

Justin: Downstairs, at my house.

Pete: Yeah. That’s true.

Alex: Do they battle?

Justin: Yeah. I’m training them to fight each other. I do a lot of training of different people in my life.

Pete: That’s great man. Good for you.

Alex: That’s really cool.

Justin: Pug view pug.

Pete: Dude, if you have that in your backyard, or whatever, I’d love to come over and place bets.

Justin: Oh, you want to do some dog fighting?

Pete: Yeah.

Justin: What a weird way to say that.

Pete: A dog versus his daughter. Oh, I haven’t thought about that. Yeah, I was just-

Justin: Definitely, think about it a dog and my daughter fighting.

Alex: [crosstalk 00:49:44] definitely think about it as much as possible. Pete you’re starting to slow your words. So we’re going to finish up this episode patreon.com/comicbookclub, if you want to support the show. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 8:00pm.

Alex: You’re at The PIT loft Theater in New York. Come on by quickly because I don’t know if Pete’s going to survive till the next one. Where do you want to plug?

Pete: Friends on Facebook so you get to know about the amazing guests we have on our live show.

Justin: Post on Twitter and sorry we poisoned Pete.

Alex: We’re on Twitter.

Justin: No. Just follow us on Twitter, @comicbookclublotcomicbooklive.

Alex: Great. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast. For more you could subscribe at iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice and we’ll see you at the old timey Vaudeville show. Come on, down. Come on down at a Saturday out there and eat some pies.

]]>https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/04/the-stack-something-is-killing-the-children-wicked-divine-and-more/feed/013561Comic Book Club: Jordan D. Whitehttps://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/03/comic-book-club-jordan-d-white-2/
https://comicbookclublive.com/2019/09/03/comic-book-club-jordan-d-white-2/#respondWed, 04 Sep 2019 01:36:37 +0000https://comicbookclublive.com/?p=13564Marvel editor Jordan D. White returns to the show to chat about all things X-Men, from House of X to Powers of X and beyond! Check out the website at comicbookclublive.com to find out how to watch the show live! And follow the show on Twitter: @comicbooklive, @azalben, @jtsizzle, and @realpetelepage